


Ignite Your Bones

by vayleen



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Fix-It: s04e17-18 The End of Time, F/M, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vayleen/pseuds/vayleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna was suffering from terrible migraines after an accident that cost her years of her memories. Meanwhile, the Doctor must stop the End of Time, even if by doing so he failed to protect the Most Important Woman in the Universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much of the dialogue for the first chapter is adapted from the actual episode _The End of Time._

The Master glanced at Wilf, and then back to the Doctor, his eyes incredulous. The Doctor knew the Master was quickly running hypotheses in his head, none of them working out. The phone really shouldn't be ringing.

Naturally, there were numerous benign aliens taking up residence on the planet Earth, but one would think any of them would be calling an eighty-one year old man in the middle of an intergalactic crisis. Quite a few of them probably escaped the planet when the humans around them starting turning into maniacal gallifreyans that ate everyone in sight.

"That's a mobile," The Master spat out.

"Yes, that's mine, let me turn it off," Wilf said, in a placating manner that was almost absurd, considering the situation.

"No. No no no. I don't think you understand," The Master said, advancing on Wilf, his finger pointed.

"Everybody on this planet," The Master said when he reached Wilf, gesticulating his hands to emphasize his point, "is me!" 

_Except, you know, other aliens,_ the Doctor thought. _It's like he's never been on twenty-first century Earth before._

"And I'm not phoning you, so who the hell is that?!"

"It's nobody! I-I'm telling you, it's nothing!" Wilf struggled in his binds while the Master rifled through the old man's pockets. "It's probably one of them ring back calls!" Wilf added desperately.

"Look at this!" The Master suddenly said, holding a world war II service revolver with his thumb and pointer finger. He waved it in front of the Doctor tauntingly.

The Doctor tried not to let his disappointment in Wilf reach his eyes.

"Good man!" The Master said to Wilf, tossing the gun aside. 

_And he probably meant it too,_ the Doctor thought.

The Master had Wilf's mobile in his hand and stood up, opening the screen and reading it as he paced. "Donna," the Master read, and the Doctor felt his hearts sink, "Donna. Why do I know that name? Donna, Donna..." the Master said, pacing, pacing.

The Doctor held himself very still, watching the Master's eyes. He could see the other man's mad, genius mind working. A small, very small, part of him hoped that the Master would not recognize Donna's name, but it was a futile hope. The Master could see _time,_ glorious and agonizing in its power, just as well as the Doctor could. And Donna's name was forever fixed in time, a brilliant nexus point where all of creation converged, brighter and more colorful than all the light of all the stars in the universe.

Hard to miss, that Donna Noble.

"Do-onna, Don-n-na," the Master muttered, drawing out the Ns and Os of her name as he processed it, the phone still ringing. Then he looked up, as though looking out. The Doctor tensed as realization flashed across the Master's face.

"Time converges," the Master said softly. And he flipped open the phone.

"Gramps!" Donna's voice, desperate and scared filled the room. "Don't hang up, you've got to help me!" The Doctor heard everything with his superior senses.

The Master smiled serenely, looking between the two other men.

"I ran out! Everyone was changing-!"

The Master waved the phone in his hand, looking at the Doctor, his eyebrows raised and his smile widening.

"Are you there?" Donna's voice called.

"Of course I am!" the Master said into the phone. "And it's certainly lovely to meet you, Donna Noble."

"Oh God, not Gramps too-!"

"Find her! Trace the call!" The Master called.

"Listen you conniving, depraved freak! You give me back my family or there will be hell to pay! I will break every one of your bones when I find you, starting with your fingers and ending with your scrawny little neck-!" Donna shouted into the phone.

"Oh, cheeky!" the Master said delightedly as Donna continued to rant, looking at the Doctor, then Wilf. The Doctor kept his face neutral, even though his hearts were pounding in his chest and his repertory bypass kicked in the second he heard Donna's voice.

"She's on Wessex Lane in Chiswick," the Master's clone, dressed smartly in Naismith’s clothes, reported.

"By all means, bring her here!" the Master replied.

"-and your hair is stupid! Who even gets blond tips anymore since the nineteen nineties?!" screamed the voice from the mobile.

The Master frowned at the phone in his hand.

"Run, Donna, run!" Wilf shouted towards the Master.

"Oi, Granddad, we're talking!" the Master said, clearly annoyed.

"Keep away from me you freaks!" Donna shouted, her voice high-pitched and breaking, betraying her fear.

"No use running, Donna Noble!" the Master said. "I'm _everywhere!_ "

"Oh God. Oh God, my head!" Donna sobbed. "It hurts!"

"Why does her head hurt?" the Master asked conversationally, looking at the Doctor and Wilf, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone as though he didn't want to interrupt her.

"I'm seeing those things again...those creatures!" Donna said. "Why can I see a giant wasp?!" Donna demanded, temper flaring in her voice.

The Master mouthed "Giant wasp?" at the Doctor, shrugging exaggeratingly. The Doctor didn't move.

"Don't think about those things, sweetheart! Just get out of there!" Wilf shouted.

"She can't hear you, Dad, I'm all the way over here," the Master said, rolling his eyes.

"My head keeps getting hotter!" Donna said. She was panting, as though she was in a lot of pain. "And hotter...and-!"

"Interesting," the Master said as Donna continued.

"Doctor," Donna said, somewhere between a scream and a sigh. The Doctor held his breath. He heard something hitting the ground next to Donna.

"W-wha-what did I..." And then nothing. The phone went dead.

The Master twirled the phone in his fingers, contemplating. The Doctor swallowed reflexively, worried for Donna, wondering if it worked.

"That was Time Lord energy," the Master stated. "So now I know why she didn't change. She isn't human anymore, is she?"

It worked.

The Master looked at the Doctor for an explanation, and saw that he was smiling. The Doctor winked. The Master strode over to him.

"Donna?! Donna, are you there?! No! Doctor, she remembered you, the metacrisis-!" Wilf cried as the Master removed the bind on the Doctor's mouth.

"Metacrisis? Really?! Now I've heard of everything!" the Master said, tugging the band free.

"That's better! Hello!" the Doctor said when his mouth was free. "But really," he said, looking the Master in the eye. "Did you think I'd leave my best-friend without a defense mechanism?" He waggled his eyebrows at the Master, feeling smugger than he probably should.

"Doctor? What happened?" Wilf asked.

"She's all right, she's fine, promise," the Doctor said, not taking his eyes of the Master. "She's just asleep."

"Oh good, that makes my job easier," the Master said. "Can another one of the six billion of you find that unconscious freak and bring her to me?" the Master said to the monitors.

"Right away," his clones answered.

"You just leave her alone! Leave her!" Wilf cried, struggling vainly with his binds.

The Doctor's face fell as the Master turned back to him, looking just as smug the Doctor did a moment before.

"A bit ridiculous for a so-called 'defense mechanism', Doctor," the Master said. "Not one of your smarter ideas to leave her unconscious afterwards. How long would it last, anyway? Twenty-first century Earth, there are alien convoys consistently, near constantly in another decade. She was going to remember you and die eventually."

No, this couldn't happen. The Doctor watched the Master, taking a millisecond to process what he could do, what needed to be done to distract him from Donna Noble.

The Doctor thought about how wonderful and beautiful the Master could be if he wasn't so twisted. He was brilliant, a stone-cold genius, maybe even more clever than he was. They could see all of time and space together. The Doctor tried to tell the Master this, trying to distract him from Donna, knowing it wouldn't work. But also because, if he was honest with himself, he truly wanted that. To have his first friend, the first friend of his lives, back.

"Would it stop then?" the Master asked after the Doctor told him they could see the universe. His eyes were distant and serious. "The noise in my head?"

"I can help," the Doctor said softly.

The Master shook his head. "I don't know what I'd be without that noise," he said.

"I know what I'd be without you," the Doctor said.

_"You are not alone," said the Face of Boe._

The Master shook himself, wistful and sad. But then he smiled slowly, raising Wilf's mobile up and waggling it in front of the Doctor's face. "But it looks like you and I aren't alone anymore, are we?"

"What does he mean? What noise?" Wilf demanded.

The Master stood up and launched into a story about growing up on Gallifrey. As he talked, the Doctor thought about when he looked into the untempered schism as a young boy of eight, and how it hurt, and how he ran. He ran from what he saw there. He ran because he could see his own destiny there, marking him, the destroyer of worlds, the man that would bring down his own planet in the last great time war. Back then, he didn't understand what he was seeing, not completely. He was too young.

But he was afraid so he ran.

"Listen to it. Listen," the Master said, his eyes boring into the Doctor's.

"Let's find it. You and me. Just leave Donna alone," the Doctor pleaded. 

But the Master was already wrapped up in another rant. He was going to find it himself. He had six billion versions of himself on that planet and he was going to amplify that signal and find the source.

"We've got her, sir," came the Master's voice from the monitor.

"No!" the Doctor shouted, straining against his binds to no avail. All pretense gone, he glared at the Master in fury. "What could you possibly want with her-?!"

The Master slapped him in the face. The Doctor yelped in surprise and gritted his teeth.

"Easy, Doctor, you have something I want, now I have something you want," the Master said. He leaned in close. "Where is your TARDIS, Doctor?"

"Let me go and I'll take you to her," the Doctor said.

"Doctor-!" Wilf cried.

"Hmmm, I don't know if I can trust you, Doctor," the Master said, making a show of hemming and hawing.

"Please, Master, please. I will do whatever you want, I promise you. Just let Donna go. Let her go," the Doctor said, not breaking the Master's gaze, holding it with all the power he could muster in his mind. Willing the Master to see that he was telling the absolute truth.

The Doctor was surprised by the curiosity that played across the Master's features before the other man broke the stare. "I think I need to get a better look at my bargaining chip before I make this deal," the Master said, carelessly throwing the mobile into Wilf's lap.

"Don't! Don't!" the Doctor shouted as the Master left the room.

* * *

The headaches started the week after her accident. At first, they were mild and a nuisance. But soon she had developed her very first migraine. And then they never stopped, they cycled through, in and out of her life like one train wreck after another.

The pain ebbed into her body like waves, as though an entire ocean was trying to fit inside her. She could almost sense the migraines before they came, tiny pinpricks behind her eyes, on her shoulders, up and down her neck. Every light and sound would cause those pinpricks to flare until it filled her head and it felt as though her whole body was being taken over by the pain.

Every nerve in her body was sensitive to the point that anything touching her skin was painful. Donna would lie in bed naked, hunched over the edge as she wretched into a rubbish bin. All the light blocked off, a pillow over her ear to muffle the sound, her body sweaty and exhausted from the heat of the pain, dehydration, and lack of sleep.

"Bloody hell, it feels like I'm dying," Donna whispered. And then she shuddered. Even the sound of her own voice was painful.

Sylvia was treating her like she was a suspiciously fragile, which irritated Donna even more. Wilf was also anxious, though he was less prone to treating her like a breakable child, for which Donna was grateful. Neither of them were very supportive of Donna when she decided to look for a specialist for her migraines. Sylvia was so pessimistic that Donna had to leave the kitchen before she started a real fight.

It seemed to make her Granddad even sadder. "I hate to see you spend the money when...when-"

"When what, Gramps?"

Wilf opened his mouth again and then closed it. "Nothing, sweetheart," he said after a while.

Donna tried every kind of migraine medicine she could, even though some were very expensive and it was a struggle to get through the public health system sometimes. At first the different triptans seemed to work, but their effectiveness didn't last. Donna would be back again, agitated and angry with her pain, and it befuddled the doctors. There was nothing else wrong - no tumors, no weird brain fungus, nothing.

After an inconclusive MRI, her doctors finally suggested therapy. Donna hated therapy. Her therapist, a woman in her early thirties that wore ridiculously short skirts for a doctor, tried to get Donna to work through her "triggers" in order to prevent the migraines.

"You're not listening to me!" Donna finally yelled at her. "It's not work, it's not stress, it's not lack of sleep or lack of some random vitamin X you keep prattling on about! I don't bloody need a vacation or something stupid, I just get headaches and I don't. Know. Why!"

Her therapist opted to stop working with her.

"Stupid bint," Donna muttered after her final therapy session.

Her friends were uncomfortable with the changes in Donna's health. Nerys would go between bragging about how she never got sick, not even the sniffles, to trying to one-up Donna's sickness, saying how Donna couldn't possibly be more tired than her because Nerys had such a _terribly exhausting day at work_ and her children were just _driving her mad._ Her whole attitude weighed on Donna's nerves to the point that Donna stopped calling her. Nerys was definitely one of her "triggers".

And she started avoiding every stupid romantic movie, television show, song, or novel in existence because they suddenly made her hopelessly sad and she'd sob until her head was pounding. She used to think wallowing like that was ridiculous, so she only did it in private. Lance must have really broken her heart, if only she could remember it.

It was during another hopeless migraine cycle that Donna met Shaun Temple. She was working at a new office when she had to leave early. Again. Her new bosses were getting exasperated, but Donna couldn't help it, no matter how much she wanted to. The nice sandwich delivery man offered her a ride home.

Donna loved Shaun. He was a hopeless romantic, a dreamer. He was so idealistic, sweet, and great looking. And he was eager to settle down. Just what a woman her age should be looking for.

She couldn't help but feel, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she was just going through the motions with Shaun. Because that was what people expected of her.

"Like you could do better," Sylvia said. "You should snatch him up now or you'll never get another chance."

"Mum, I don't know if I...well, if I'm giving all I got. I feel blocked off somehow. If that's true, then I'm not being fair to Shaun-"

"Stop it, Donna. Your head is all full of nonsense. There's no such thing as fairy tales where princes come to sweep you off your feet. Marry that poor man before you find yourself old, gray, and alone."

Donna told herself she wasn't marrying Shaun because her mother scared her into it. She was doing it because she really did love him, and could probably love him more with every passing year they were together. There were worse people to grow old with than kind, decent men like Shaun.

The only person Donna thought suspected she was just making do Wilf. 

"I just hate to see you do something because you feel like it's expected of you sweetheart-" Wilf said.

"That's not it at all, Gramps, I do love Shaun. Really I do, he's sweet. And wonderful," Donna said.

"But are you happy?"

"Of course I am." She thought she was telling the truth, she honestly did, but couldn't shake the false feeling she got in the back of her throat when she said those words. So what if what she was doing happened to be what was expected of her? Maybe this was how her life was supposed to work out. The cookie-cutter lifestyle of husband, home, and babies, just what every other human being on Earth strived for.

Donna sighed, once again feeling like there was something missing in her life - like she once had more answers but she couldn't remember the questions. She thought they might have something to do with the two year gap in her memory, but everyone had said those two years were just more of the same, aside from her father's death, which had devastated her. But as she tried to prod at that gap, at those missing questions, the ache in the back of her neck started again and she immediately stopped thinking about it.

She looked up to see her Grandfather gazing at her so intently and sadly. Like he was studying her for...something. When he saw her looking at him, he gave her a wan smile.

"I suppose...that is what's really important."

"I think so," Donna said. "I mean...it's not like anything is missing. I have everything I've ever wanted. Everything."

* * *

The TARDIS hummed; an aching, low, deep sound. A grieving sound.

The Doctor held the woman in his arms tightly to his body. He was shaking so much that he had to lower them to their knees. She continued to sleep as he stroked her back and ran his fingers through her vibrant hair.

"Oh Donna, my Donna," he whispered. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Shock, grief, and devastating loneliness were consuming him and the only comfort he had was her warmth in his arms, and even that would be fleeting.

He would never forget the tone and caliber of her voice as she pleaded with him. The last thing she would ever say to him with her eyes holding all their history behind them. They seemed so much bluer, bright and desperate. Catastrophically beautiful.

All he wanted was for her to live. It meant going into her mind and locking all her memories of him. He felt her sorrow as he pulled away each one. But also, he saw himself the way she had been seeing him.

He didn't know, he never realized how much she adored him.

Her love was so steady, and deep, pure in its simplicity, yet complex in how it developed in her heart. And precious in how she kept it her secret, because Donna Noble would not be a burden to anybody, and she knew (or she thought she knew) that her feelings would be a burden to him. He told her as much when she started to make herself at home on his TARDIS. Not directly, just that he couldn't do with another companion falling in love with him. So she defensively told him that just wouldn't happen with her, he wasn't her type. Too skinny, too alien, and too weird.

But when that changed, instead of becoming what she thought would be another burden, she was generous with her feelings instead. Keeping secret how she felt, but constantly thinking about him anyway, his well-being, his stability. Keeping him buoyant from the darkness in his soul. Holding him when he needed her. Shouting at him when he needed her help to stay in perspective. Making him smile, making him laugh. Falling into the easy camaraderie that they both needed.

And even though she didn't believe it, she was in all ways his equal. His brilliant Donna Noble, with her compassionate heart and ridiculously intelligent mind, even before this metacirsis took her away from him.

What was he going to do without her?

They didn't have much time. She would start to wake up in one, maybe two hours and he had to have her home by then, surrounded by familiar comforts or the stress might jar her nerves too much.

The Doctor carefully leaned away and Donna's head rolled back. He gently caught it with his left hand, noticing it was wet. Too much crying into her hair. He'd have to make it rain in Chiswick so she wouldn't wake up and wonder about it.

He moved Donna to one of the benches along the wall, pausing to brush her hair away from her face, which somehow ended with him trailing his finger along her cheek. The TARDIS hummed, reminding him they had a task to do.

"I'm not ready," the Doctor whispered, gazing at her face, how her dark eyelashes brushed against her tear-streaked cheeks.

His TARDIS hummed again, insistent.

"No, you're right," he answered, "I'll never be ready."

The Doctor was a rougher than he meant to be as he punched in the coordinates to take Donna home.

When he returned to carry her out, every step felt heartbreaking and heavy, and he was already exhausted when he reached her. He lifted her up into his arms, cradling her to his chest, and he knew he shouldn't, but he pulled her close so he could kiss the corner of eye. 

"I would have given you everything if you asked me," he whispered. "I wanted to. But I was afraid. I'm so sorry."

She sighed, turning towards the sound of his voice.

Despite the danger, the Doctor lingered in Donna's mother's house. He had to be sure Sylvia and Wilf understood what Donna had done, and how that couldn't change, she was now the most important fixed point in all of time. He also had to make sure the treatment worked and that she woke up without her memories.

But it was like a knife was twisting in his solar plexus when Donna's blue eyes refused to focus on him. Like John Smith couldn't focus on the fob watch, Donna couldn't focus on the strange man in her living room and her greeting was distracted to the point of rudeness. It was so uncharacteristic of the warm, compassionate, open woman he knew her to be, and that's how the Doctor knew the treatment worked. But there was no way to know how the neurons in her brain would settle, so he couldn't risk staying that stranger in her living room.

The Doctor would never see Donna Noble again.

* * *

The only sounds were the buzz of the machinery and the Immortality Gate as Rassilon's White-Point Star prepared to transmit the signal, the _drum-drum drum-drum_ , steady in his mind. In the center of the room, beneath the skylight, was a woman lying on the ground.

The Master thought she looked rather plain. It wasn't like he was expecting a lot of fanfare around the so-called Most Important Woman in the Universe, but lying there, unconscious in the middle of his makeshift control room, she seemed so ordinary. Just like every other human.

"What's so special about you?" the Master murmured, more to himself than anyone else in the room.

The Master kneeled down next to Donna Noble to study her. For all his talk about the Doctor and his fascination with Earth girls, there was a time when the Master would have said he understood that fascination. Humans had a naive curiosity and passionate drive that made them ideal companions in many ways. The Master was suddenly reminded of Lucy. Lucy and her bright hair and cherry lips. Lucy and her eagerness to please and unquelled desire for him. He had only seduced her for her family connections, but when he discovered how easily she let herself be manipulated, how she seemed to enjoy being controlled, he let himself get attached. It was good that he did, or he never would have been resurrected by her kiss.

But now Lucy Saxon was dead because she tried to kill him.

Just as well. He felt he was meant to be alone.

The Master gently moved a small, curly lock of ginger hair off of Donna Noble's cheek and wrapped it slowly around his middle finger until it was taut. Then he pulled one hair at a time, until the whole lock was ripped from her skull.

She frowned in her sleep but did not wake up.

"Interesting," the Master said, rubbing the hair between his fingers.

The Doctor must have put a safety mechanism in the energy burst that would put her in a deep sleep. Perhaps until the neurons that activated the metacrisis disconnected. That would take time, and the Master wasn't a patient man.

With his other hand, he touched Donna Noble's face and connected with her mind.

_Well. This explains everything._

Donna Noble's mind was expansive and colorful in a surprisingly glorious way. Not at all like the average human. Far from it. It explained how her human brain managed to maintain a Time Lord consciousness for the better part of a day without burning away her body. Normally it took a good deal of genetic engineering. The Master had taken over human bodies before, but that usually resulted in the native mind burning away, and he had to struggle to maintain the body without destroying it.

If he thought he was stable enough to do so, he would consider taking over this body and mind, with its lovely Time Lord consciousness simmering quietly at its center.

_I can see why he likes you,_ the Master thought, as he started to dig around that simmering core in Donna Noble's mind.

She rushed at him, an enraged, fiery wave.

The Master was pushed all the way back out.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the still sleeping woman.

"You shouldn't be able to do that," he said to her.

"All right, poppet, up you goes," the Master said, jumping to his feet and haling Donna up with him.

Her legs couldn't support her, so the Master gripped her arms to keep her upright, staring right at her face as her eyelids fluttered and opened.

"Wh-what-" she said, voice hoarse.

"You couldn't boot me out before I activated your consciousness," the Master said, smugly. "Though I didn't have enough time to connect all those golden Time Lord neurons festering in your brain. A shame, really. They're connecting on their own one by one anyway. In another ten or twenty years enough of those buggers will be active and those headaches you keep having will literally kill you."

Donna started shaking. "Who-who are y-you-"

"Now, now, Donna Noble," the Master said, rubbing her arms. "There's really nothing to be done-"

"DOCTOR!"

The Master startled at the sound of his own voice. He looked over at a monitor to see the Doctor was being wheeled away by...were those vinvocci? How inconvenient.

"Find him!" he heard his clone say.

The Master looked back at Donna Noble, frowning. She feebly started struggling in his grasp.

"It looks like the Doctor didn't want to bargain for you after all. What a shame. I would have bargained for you," the Master said, walking forwards with Donna. She dragged her feet along his path, struggling to stay upright. "Really, I would have. You have the sort of mind I would gladly consume and control, like Lucy, only better."

One step. Two. Donna's ankles were rolling, slowing his progress, but he didn't want to break eye contact.

"It was an awful way to treat you, wasn't it Donna Noble? The Most Important Woman in all of time, and you're reduced to this. Left to live an ordinary life in extraordinary pain until you die too soon. Who wants to live like that? You? I think you didn't. He was being selfish, wasn't he?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking-" Donna said.

"Of course you do, you just don't remember. Consciously, anyway. The rest of you remembers. How he didn't want you anymore, because he felt guilty. He can be so dramatic sometimes, can't he? But he was too cowardly to let you die the way you wanted."

They were close enough that Donna could hear a mechanical whirring behind her. She struggled more, to no avail. Her arms wouldn't work right. The Master smiled at her. He leaned forward.

"Don't worry," he whispered into her ear, "I found another way you can make yourself useful."

Donna looked up at him as he pulled away, fear and anger in her eyes.

And then she was pushed backwards.

The Master sniffed his makeshift ring of ginger hair as Donna Noble disappeared into the white light of the Immortality Gate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of the dialogue for the this chapter is adapted from the actual episode _The End of Time._

Sound was coming from far away, at the end of a tunnel. Vibrations shaking the earth below her body resonated in her cochlea, vibrating her basilar membrane. In the spiral organ of Corti, hair cells were deflected and the resulting impulses passed through her spiral ganglion, along the afferent fibers of the cochlear nerve to the cochlear nuclei of her medulla. The information, lightening traveling from axon to dendrite and axon to dendrite, was carried to the auditory reflex center of the midbrain, the thalamus, and finally her primary auditory cortex. Providing conscious awareness of the sound.

Donna Noble opened her eyes.

Before she could fixate on such a weird dream, there was another vibration beneath her and then the sound coalesced together, suddenly making sense. They were explosions and they were getting closer.

Donna scrambled to her feet, and found she was off balance. Standing made her lean to the left. Not only that, but her whole body hurt, like an electrical burn covering the inside of her skin.

Another explosion had Donna reeling further to her left and she lost her footing, falling to her hands and knees. She stared at the rust-colored earth beneath her hands in confusion. Donna looked up.

"Oh. My. God."

The sky was filled with smoke and lavender colored clouds. What little of the sky she could see was pearly orange and so bright she had to squint. She could distinctly make out two suns in the sky behind the clouds, one small and white, the other much larger and red, looking angry behind the dark clouds. She felt overwhelmed, awestruck by the otherworldly sight. Oddly, it was a familiar feeling, like she had been in a similar situation before. Watching creation. But that was impossible.

She was kneeling in a hilly, desert landscape covered in red and gold sand. Some of the hills protruded high, the earth on top of them was dry and purple. Down the hill she was on, Donna saw three figures in strange, dark military uniforms running up towards her.

One was waving frantically. In her direction. He shouted something, but Donna couldn't understand it.

"Was that even English?!" she shouted, but there was another explosion in the distance and she couldn't even hear herself.

They were getting closer. Donna got to her feet, warily. The first one shouted again, still in a language she didn't know, but the meaning behind them seemed to make sense to Donna. Something like... _Don't turn around! Run!_

Donna turned around.

In the distance, the far distance, saucers in the sky were shooting silver and blue lasers at the desert below, billowing gold and red sand into the air. The whole landscape was catching fire, thick smoke filling the sky with more ominous looking clouds. Canons seemed to materialize on the ground below and shoot shadows at the flying saucers, swallowing them whole. Sleeker, more foreboding planes were shooting down the saucers from the sky. They seemed to make the air ripple.

A hand grasped her arm hard, spinning her around. Donna looked up at a handsome man of medium build and height, with striking blue eyes. He was anxious, trying to pull her away saying the worlds that translated _Run, run!_ into her head.

"Let go of me!" Donna shouted at him, struggling.

"Oh, English?" said a tall second man with bright red hair, running up to join them while looking ahead at the approaching flying saucers.

"Seems like it," said the first.

"I told you she'd be here, didn't I say?! I did say!" said a third voice, this time female.

"Yes, you know everything, don't you?" said the second man towards the woman.

"Oi!" shouted Donna. "What's with the chatter?! Who are you people?! What is this place?!" She managed to get her arm free, but was only grabbed again.

"Donna Noble, I will explain everything, promise! But right now we're in a war zone and those saucers are about to set this whole plain on fire, so we have to RUN!"

They were running down the purple hill, Donna slipping on the sand. The two other strangers took up point behind them, looking warily at the sky.

"We _really_ need to go faster, old boy-" said the woman.

"Not my fault she's not wearing proper shoes," the man on her arm answered.

"Now look here-" Donna started.

The man pulled out a strange tubular tool that glowed blue and made a bleeping noise, aiming it at her feet.

"There, now you won't slip on the sand anymore," he said.

"Did you just ruin my patent leather boots?! I love these boots!"

"No time for that, Noble, we've got to get one thousand kilometers that way, and we've got to do it _now!_ "

They dashed down the hills and across desert valleys. Donna tried her best to keep up, even though she knew she was slowing them down. Her breasts and shins were getting sore from the running (an oddly familiar annoyance), but she tried to ignore it, tried going faster. The explosions were getting closer and she could see lights flashing around them from the lasers. One of them shouted something, sounding like they were in pain, but she wasn't sure which.

"Almost there-"

They were only crossing another plain when Donna felt something. It was thin air, but it felt like walking through gelatinous plastic.

"Scramble the signal, Katja!"

"Already am!" Donna saw the second man holding another tubular, glowing device, aiming it at the air behind them.

The saucers were still shooting lasers, but the sound of it all was muffled. Donna watched, baffled, as they flew overhead, still shooting, but the lasers never reached the ground.

"That should buy us approximately 16.43 minutes before the Daleks break through Katja's new signal. It should buy us plenty of time to get to the teleportation pad on the other side of the lake-" the first man said, his blue eyes sparkling, a smile on his face.

Donna wretched her arm out of his grasp and smacked him on his shoulder.

"Ow! Hey-"

"Are you enjoying this?! A bunch of UFOs are shooting bloody lasers at us, we're running for our lives, and you're enjoying this?! What the hell is this place anyway? It can't be Earth! Did you _kidnap_ me to _Mars?!_ " shouted Donna, throwing her hands in the air.

"This...this isn't Mars-" the woman said.

"I can understand the confusion though, Mars is the only red planet it her solar system-" the ginger man started.

"Donna-" the first man said, cautiously holding out his hands and approaching her. “You were the one complaining about your boots of all things-“

"And that's another thing! _How do you know who I am?!_ " Donna demanded, backing away from them.

"Everyone knows who you are!" the woman said.

The second man was scanning her with the tubular device. "There's a lot of latent neural activity, but it's not conscious, probably labile from the shock. That might be why her memory isn't working. She also has a damaged ear drum, luckily it's not so bad she'll lose her hearing, but it's not good for her current equilibrium. But we won't know much until we get her to the Circle-"

"What the bloody hell do you mean 'circle'?!"

"My wife!" said the first man. "I mean...she's my wife. The Circle is my wife. She's a medical doctor and we need to take you to her."

Donna blinked. "Doctor..." she whispered, the word coming unbidden from her throat. She shook herself and stared at him. And then at the other two. They were all looking at her warily. "Who are you people?" she asked, confusion, fury, and exhaustion manifesting in her voice.

"Well...you probably won't be able to pronounce our real names, but I'm called Lamar. This is my sister, Halcyon-" He pointed to the short woman with large gray eyes. "-and my brother, Katjacrellvgynm, but we still call him Katja since...since he hasn't had a naming ceremony."

Donna looked at the tall young man Lamar pointed at. He was looking down at her, looking both sheepish and sad. "And I never will," Katja said. "But it's the name my mother gave me, so that's all right."

"We better get moving," Halcyon said.

"Right," Lamar answered, taking Donna firmly by the hand and setting a brisk pace.

"You're very lucky to be here, Donna Noble, not a lot of humans have gotten to see it. Over there is one of my favorite places here in the South, the large, golden Sea of Trepidity, and it had the most lovely little blue flowers blooming around the shore! It's full of molten rock and lava now, but it used to be full of singing fish. And let me tell you, they were beautiful. Delicious too-" Lamar said.

At the same time Katja was going on about the sky. "It's a shame you had to visit in the middle of a war, Donna, because the sky is usually the most striking thing! Bright golden orange with amazing aurorae displays of purple, green, yellow, just all the colors of the rainbow really! Scientists theorized that in ancient times, when we were evolving to what we are today, the charged particles are what gave us our telepathic abilities-"

Even Halcyon couldn't stay quiet while they were running for their lives. "I'm so glad you landed in the South, Donna Noble! If you landed up North towards the Capitol, we might never have reached you! The South is really superior in beauty anyway. That is, before it was on fire. It might still be, it's not like the North isn't on fire as well. Over there is Mount Cadon, it had some amazing backpacking trails, if you're into that kind of thing. Cadonflood River flows from there, and a bit down the river is Lungbarrow, that's home-" 

After listening to them talk over each other, none of it making sense, and struggling because she could barely hear out of one ear _anyway,_ Donna lost her patience. "Oi! Do all you Martians talk like this while running from laser shooting UFOs?! How is a person supposed to follow that incessant prattle?! More importantly, how do you aliens know my name?" Donna demanded, interrupting their daft and seemingly endless rambles.

"We're not Martians," Halcyon said. "And we know your name because you're the Most Important Woman in the Universe. Everyone here immediately knew your name when the Time Lock was infiltrated by the signal. Of course, not all of them knew you'd end up in the southern plains of Cadon." She grinned at Donna over her shoulder. "I did though."

"Careful, you'll end up like the Visionary," Lamar teased.

Halcyon made a face. "You take that back," she said.

Most Important what?! Ludicrous! Donna yanked her hand out of Lamar's grip. When he turned to protest, she pulled back and smacked him across the face.

Halcyon and Katja stared at her, stunned.

"What was that for?!" Lamar angrily demanded, rubbing his cheek.

"You bloody aliens kidnapped me!" Donna shouted. "Kidnapped me to fucking hell knows where on some godforsaken planet! Everything smells like sulfur and smoke and I'm so dizzy and I can't hear right! I want to go home!" Tears started falling and Donna wiped them away quickly. "My head hurts something fierce..." she trailed off, crying.

"We're trying to get you home, Donna," Lamar said. "But you're very sick and we need to help you. Quickly, before it's too late and you burn up or you're erased from existence with the rest of us and our planet."

Donna stared at him. "What planet is that exactly?"

Lamar smiled wanly. "This is Gallifrey, Donna Noble."

* * *

"COME ON!" shouted the Doctor.

The vinvocci couldn't help but express their exasperation over the Doctor's apparent ingratitude to their "quick rescue" as they untied him, but the Doctor didn't care. He was furious. Without listening to him, they transported him and Wilf to their ship and now thousands of missiles were going to be launched into space, destroying him before he could rescue Donna.

Not if he could help it.

As soon as his hands and feet were free, he jumped up and sonicked the engineering computer so the ship wouldn't put out their positional coordinates if hacked by a computer on Earth.

He turned to Addams. "Where's your flight deck?!" the Doctor demanded.

"But we're safe! We're a hundred miles above the Earth!"

"And he's got every missile on the planet ready to fire!" the Doctor shouted.

"Oh my goodness, we're in space! And my sweet girl is down there...Doctor..." Wilf said, the shock apparent in his voice.

"We're going to get her back, Wilf, but not before the Master finds us first if I don't get to the _flight deck!_ "

"Follow me," Addams said, begrudgingly.

The Doctor turned to guide a stuttering Wilf away from the engineering deck. When they joined Addams and Rossiter, it looked suspiciously like they were getting ready to enter into hyperspace.

"We've got to close it down," the Doctor says, striding over to the navigational panel on the other side of the deck.

"No chance, mate. We're going home!" Rossiter said, putting the computers back together.

Addams was busy putting more pieces together. "We’re just a salvage team! Local politics has got nothing to with us. Not unless it’s a carnival. The sooner we get back to Vinvocci space, the better-"

"We're not leaving!" the Doctor shouted. And he used his sonic screwdriver to shut down their computers and their ship. A split second decision he hated making because it hindered his ability to get back to Earth.

Several minutes later, after everyone was reasonably sure the Master could not find their dead ship in the skies, Rassitor started to assess the damage. "The engines are burned out. All we’ve got is auxiliary lights-"

The Doctor marched up to Addams. "Let me see your transportation device," he said, pointing to her wrist.

"Joke's on you, mate, it stopped working. He must have destroyed the interface back on Earth," she said. "And I wouldn't help you anyway! We're stranded in space and it's all your fault! Idiot!" she said, and she marched away, Rassitor following.

The Doctor swallowed, mind whirring. He had no way to get to Donna, not at that moment. What else could he do?

"Wilf," the Doctor said, turning to the old man, "Do you still have your mobile?"

"I did remember to pick it back up, yes," Wilf answered, patting his pockets. "Here it is."

The Doctor accepted the phone. "Does it get satellite service?" he asked, using his screwdriver.

"I don't think so-"

"Now it does," the Doctor said. "I added a spacial pulse to your mobile to help us locate Donna's phone."

"But what if the Master has it instead?" Wilf asked.

"Then I'll have to defenestrate your mobile out the airlock and into deep space so he can't lock onto it," the Doctor said, pushing the call button for Donna's mobile.

He waited. But there was nothing.

"Doctor?" Wilf asked.

The Doctor pondered the implications. Donna's phone wasn't receiving the pulse. If Donna's phone was on Earth, it should be receiving the pulse. If Donna's phone wasn't on Earth...but how would that happen? The most likely scenario was Donna's phone was somehow destroyed since calling her grandfather.

"I've got to get back down there," the Doctor said, more to himself than to Wilf.

"I'll help you in any way I can, sir," Wilf said solemnly. "I want to know that she's safe," his voice broke on the last word.

The Doctor turned and looked at his friend. "If there's one thing I know about Donna, it's that she can do absolutely anything. She can take care of herself. I have faith that she can," the Doctor said, turning back to the window. The planet Earth was there, the brilliant blue marble he had loved for all the centuries of his lives. The Doctor thought of Donna's eyes.

"I know she will," he said.

* * *

"Gallifrey," Donna whispered the name both strange and achingly familiar. She looked around with new perspective. At the rust colored sand, the smoky atmosphere, the dead trees she thought once must have been covered in shining, silver leaves, the molten cracks in the planet's crust. "But...but it’s _burning-_ "

"Our planet is dying," Lamar said. "It has been burning for centuries in this never-ending war."

"No," Donna whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Oh, my head!" she cried, lifting the heel of her hand to her forehead and pressing back, as if she could press the incoming migraine away.

Katja was scanning her again. "We need to start moving again, Donna, you're not well-"

"No!" Donna cried, struggling with a grief she didn't understand. A grief for a dying, beautiful red planet.

"Donna Noble, please," Katja said, grabbing her by the shoulders. "The metacrisis energy is consuming your body. We have to get you help. The Circle can do that, she has loads of experience." His face faltered. "I mean...not loads, there's never been a human-Time Lord metacrisis before, but she's clever, she can think of something."

Donna looked up at Katja. Many of the words he said were causing pinpricks in her headache, giving her a sense of awareness. Gallifrey. Metacrisis. Time Lord. And she wanted so desperately to know why, but the pain was clouding everything, making it hard to think. "It hurts so much. Sometimes all I can think about is the pain. And I can't remember what it was like before it was there. Like it’s changed me, who I am."

Lamar approached them and raised his hand up to brush her hair away from her temple. "Maybe I can help," he said. His fingertips went to both sides of her face, along her temples and cheekbones. "May I?"

Unexplainable fear welled up in Donna chest. Her instincts were screaming at her to run away from Lamar. There was something about what he was about to do that she knew would feel invasive and it terrified her, but she couldn't remember why she knew that. Donna looked into his worried, blue eyes, pleading with her to trust him. They were so much older than he appeared, so alien, like they carried the universe inside of them. She suddenly had a sense of another pair of eyes looking at her from this position. Large, warm, brown eyes that she could drown in.

Eyes that made her want to run towards them, towards home. Eyes that made her want to run away, far away, and never look back at those eyes.

She quelled her fear.

"All right," Donna said.

She felt Lamar in her mind. He was a gentle presence and he seemed overly polite inside her head, like he didn't want to track in mud from his shoes. She felt him banking the fires in her mind until she didn't feel the burning anymore. But in the back of her thoughts, she felt the panic coming, the terrible fear of being invaded. She was suddenly, irrationally convinced he was about to take something from her, everything that made her happy.

_Get out, get out, get out, get out, GET OUT!_

She could feel how startled Lamar was in his own mind. Unbidden, she felt like a stranger in her own head, and somehow knew she was seeing his thoughts as well as hers. Suddenly, Donna got an image of a man with slicked back dark blond hair, hazel eyes, and chiseled features that reminded her of a silver screen old Hollywood actor. He was looking down at her, a ghost of a smile on his thin lips. She realized she was looking through Lamar’s eyes as a child. Startled, she opened her eyes.

"That was weird," Lamar said. "I didn't know humans could do that. In fact, I was fairly certain they couldn't do that." He blinked at her. "Why did you pull that memory out of my head?"

"I-I didn't mean to."

"That's all right," Lamar said. "It was just my daft uncle."

"All right to run again, Donna?" Halcyon asked. "We've only got 4.32 minutes left before the Daleks can get through our dampening field."

"Yes, I think I can manage," Donna said, straightening. She took one more forlorn look at the burning planet around them. "I wish I could help save you," she said.

Lamar smiled at her. "You already have," he said.

They started running again. Halcyon, faster than her brothers, propelled ahead. Donna saw her stop and start pulling metal out of the sand, assembling the pieces into a large disk.

Before they could reach her, Katja stopped.

"Lamar-" he said.

"What is it, old boy, we're almost at the teleport-"

"Lamar...something is deconstructing the DNA helices in my cells." There was fear in Katja's voice.

Lamar took out his tubular device and started scanning his brother.

"What's going on?!" Halcyon called.

"Katja's been poisoned!" Lamar called back. He turned to Donna. "Donna, go to Halcyon, she can get you to safety!"

"What about you two-"

"We'll be along, don't worry," Lamar said.

"Oh no. I don't care for this self-sacrificing bullshit you've got going on. If I can help him, I'm going to help!" Donna said.

"Donna please!" Lamar said. "We will be right behind you! GO!"

Donna was suddenly being tugged from behind by Halcyon. "Don't worry, they're idiots, but they won't be dying any time soon. Trust me, I know," she said.

Donna reluctantly followed Halcyon. As soon as they were on the disk in the sand, with all the strange circular symbols on it, Halcyon pushed her to stand in the center of it. "Hold on!" she said, and she took out another of the tubular devices, aimed it at the disk, and the blue light came on.

And then Donna went completely blank.

* * *

"I've always dreamt of a view like that," Wilf said, gazing out the window at the planet below. "Every day I would dream of it, while looking through that telescope. Just yesterday I saw a shooting star streak across the sky and I thought that was a wonder! But now I'm too distracted to enjoy this. I keep thinking about Donna..." he trailed off.

The Doctor was working diligently on the wiring, trying to fix everything he destroyed in his haste to hide from the Master. He looked up over the rim of his glasses at Wilf when he said Donna's name. The old man was hunched where he was sitting, gazing out the window.

"There's England!" Wilf said suddenly, pointing. "My wife's buried down there. I might never visit her again now." He looked over at the Doctor. "Do you think he changed them? In their graves?"

The Doctor paused, hating the answer he had to give. "I'm sorry."

Wilf just shook his head. "No, not your fault."

_"It's not your fault," Donna said on the rooftop, her white dress billowing around her ankles._

_"Oh, that's a change!" the Doctor said, laughing a little._

The Doctor paused at the memory of the day he met Donna Noble. After he went through an emotional loss that was practically violent, Donna was suddenly in his life steering him straight. Also violently, but apparently that was what the universe thought he needed. But those words were one of the first glimpses he got of Donna's giving nature. The Doctor shook off his memories, twisting another wire with his long fingers.

He really was haunted by Donna.

"Isn't it?" he finally replied to Wilf. Everything was his fault. He was always hurting people just by being a part of their lives. He had hurt this whole planet because he was so wrapped up in humanity that all his enemies found him there, torturing him by torturing them.

Wilf chose not to answer him. Instead, he started talking about Earth's second world war, and the Doctor sighed, not wanting to hear about something that reminded him of the wars that destroyed his world, but he cared too much about Wilf not to listen.

"Yeah, you don't want to listen to an old man's tales, do you?" Wilf asked him, a small twinkle in his eye.

The Doctor could do nothing but smile. "I'm older than you."

"Get away!" Wilf said.

"I'm 906," the Doctor said, amused.

"What, really though?!" Wilf asked, still not believing.

"I don't look it now, but I've had aged bodies before. Long ago. Those were different days, when my...friends...were more active than I was running around alien planets. Because of my bad knees," the Doctor said, thinking of when he met Ian and Barbara. He was so young then but already so lonely, even before the war. He just wanted someone to _stay._ And then, when someone finally did declare they'd stay with him until the end, _she_ was gone too-

"One of your other lives then, that you were talking about before, in the cafe?" Wilf asked. "Did you always have human friends with you?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Sometimes I didn't even like humans," he answered, thinking of his sixth incarnation. “Once I dressed like a Roald Dahl character and thought I was superior to everything and everyone.” The Doctor thought he still had days like that. It was why he needed someone.

"Well, with nine hundred years! We must look like insects to you," Wilf said, interrupting his line of thought before he could get into another decent sulk, and possibly break the panel he was working on.

"I think you look like giants," the Doctor answered quietly. And it was true. The human race astounded him. Their lives were only a blink of an eye, but they excelled at it, curious, instinctual, adaptive creatures that they were. And every one he met seemed to teach him something, even when he was being arrogant or stubborn. They could overcome everything. They'd be there until the very end of the universe itself, still living, still adapting. Until all the stars went out. 

Wilf was coming towards him then, his service revolver in his hand.

"I want you to have this-" he started.

"No," said the Doctor.

"If you take it, you could-"

"No," the Doctor said again, and then considered Wilfred Mott and the way his eyes were downcast, looking at the revolver in his hand, like he wasn't used to the weight of it.

"You had that gun in the mansion," the Doctor said, and Wilf looked up at him. "You could have stopped the Master there and then."

Wilf looked embarrassed, and he just shrugged. "Too scared I suppose."

The Doctor understood. Wilf was not a violent man. He probably never shot another soul in his life. "I'd be proud," the Doctor said.

"Of what?"

"If you were my Dad," the Doctor said. He felt the tears threatening again, but he smiled. It was easy to care for Wilfred Mott, the man who influenced parts of Donna's nature, the caring and generous parts. The man who Donna was so fond of, and who looked at the stars every night in her place because that was what she would have wanted. But it was also easy to care because Wilfred was who he was, and all this actions came from the love and wisdom in his heart.

"Now, don't start," Wilf said, "You said 'he will knock four times' and then you die. Well, that's the Master, isn't it?" Wilf tapped his temple. "The noise in his head. The Master is going to kill you."

"Yeah," the Doctor acknowledged. 

"Then kill him first," Wilf said, offering the gun again.

"And that's how the Master started," the Doctor admonished, and Wilf lowered his hand again, shame in his eyes. The Doctor tried explaining that he wasn't innocent. He had seen wars as well, had brought down kingdoms, planets, galaxies. Manipulated people with into destroying themselves with his clever tricks.

"Sometimes I think the Time Lord lives too long," the Doctor said, acknowledging to himself his own deeply buried death wish. He looked over at Wilf and his revolver. "I can't, I just can't."

"If the Master dies, what happens to all the people?" Wilf asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know-"

"Doctor, what happens?" Wilf pressed.

"The template snaps."

"They go back to being human?"

The Doctor nodded.

Wilf's face crumbled. "They're alive? And human? Then don't you dare, sir!" Wilf said, angry and bitter, and so sad. "Don't you dare put him before them! Before my granddaughter! You said you'd take care of her!"

The Doctor flinched, looking away. He wished he wasn't feeling so raw about everything lately.

"And take this gun," Wilf said, taking the Doctor's hand and pushing the gun into it. "You take the gun and save your life. And _please_ don't die," Wilf said, tears in his eyes, "You're the most wonderful man on Earth. I...I don't want you to die."

The Doctor knew that Wilf was speaking out of compassion and love, even desperation. But he couldn't return to the way he was. Not when he had worked so hard to become better.

"Never," he said, and pushed the gun away.

"A star fell from the sky."

Wilf, who was openly weeping at that point, gasped at the sound of the Master's voice. The Doctor was not surprised. He suspected he'd be found faster than he could get their ridiculously old engines back online.

"Don't you want to know where from?" the Master asked. "Because now it makes sense, Doctor."

"Wilf," the Doctor said, not looking at him, but staring straight ahead at the planet below. "What did you say earlier about a shooting star?"

"The whole of my life, my destiny. The star was a diamond. And the diamond was a white point star!" the Master said.

"White point star-" the Doctor mouthed the words soundlessly, staring ahead in growing horror.

"And I had all day and night to sanctify the gift. Now the star is ready and the time is right. They will join us tonight, returning the visit of some of their noble guests-"

"No!" the Doctor choked out, running his fingers into his dark hair and clenching the strands.

"What's he on about?! What's he doing?! Does he mean Donna-?"

The Doctor lunged for the gun. The weight of it in his hand was immediately familiar. He looked at it sitting comfortably in his hand and thought about the war, suddenly feeling like he never left that nightmare, like he's been at war ever since, and he'd never escape that reality.

"The Time Lords are returning," the Doctor said, leaping to his feet.

"That's good, isn't it?! I mean, that's your people-" Wilf said, getting up to follow him.

The Doctor knew that wasn't good at all. His people were broken, driven mad by endless war. And now they had Donna Noble.

"Allons-y, Wilfred Mott!" the Doctor called, running back to the flight deck.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dialogue at the end this chapter is adapted from the actual episode _The End of Time._

It had been a confusing day for Donna Noble. All she wanted to do was go Christmas shopping with Shaun and sort out the holiday confusion involved with making plans with both his family and her family. Instead, the entire planet changed into clones of a madman, a man who told her she was going to die. The pain in her head was going to kill her.

Donna believed him. She would say she didn't know why she did, but there was a thought in the back of her mind, a foggy thought that was mostly locked away before it could form into a coherent one, that made her think the reason she was in so much pain was because a person like her shouldn't exist.

It was a similar thought that made Donna think the teleportation experience she was having was pretty terrible, not at all what she expected. Then again, how did she know she had experience with teleportation?

After what seemed like an eternity of feeling totally blank, Donna found herself in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by walls that looked like red and brown coral. Curious and bewildered, Donna automatically stepped forward, nearly tripping over the edge of the disc she didn't realize she was standing on.

A moment later, she heard something like an electrical buzz behind her and Donna turned around to see Halcyon.

"Good thing you stepped right then, because I forgot to tell you to move off the teleportation pad once you got here. We can't teleport anyone else if something is in the way," Halcyon said, stepping towards her. A bit too much into Donna's personal space, so she found herself stepping back as Halcyon stepped forward.

Halcyon turned and frowned at the disc on the floor. "I hope Lamar and Katja make it through."

And despite her confusion, frayed temper, and ebbing headaches, Donna felt her heart go out to the young woman, anxious for her siblings. "I'm sure they'll make it," Donna said, reaching out to pat Halcyon's arm awkwardly in an attempt to reassure her. "Perhaps we could go back and help-?"

"No, no," Halcyon said. "My priority is getting you back across Time before it locks you in," The young woman stepped back and gestured grandly at the walls around them. "Welcome to our little, underground base! Safely hidden from The Capitol, thanks to the interfering psychosignal technology. It's funny how one can make use of enemy technology during a war, isn't it, Donna Noble-?"

"Donna Noble?"

Both women turned to see an older gentleman in the same dark uniform leaning against what looked like a round table with a ridiculous array of knobs and buttons. There was a monitor above it with more of the circular patterns Donna recognized from the teleportation disk, but she couldn't try to understand them without making her headache worse.

" _The_ Donna Noble?!" the man repeated, walking towards them.

"Sure, Baron, _the_ Donna Noble," Halcyon said, smiling and gesturing with both arms at Donna Noble like she was some sort of game show prize. The man called 'Baron' stopped when he neared the two of them.

"Remarkable," the Baron said softly, not taking his eyes off Donna.

Donna was starting to feel like one of those partially successful celebrities, the ones she felt sorry for when she read about their derailing lives being torn apart in the tabloids.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Donna said, with all the snark she could muster.

"Oh, can I?!" the Baron asked, genuinely enthusiastic.

There was another electric buzz, and all three of them turned to see Katja on the teleportation disk.

And then Katja collapsed forwards onto the floor.

"Katja!" Halcyon cried, running for him.

Donna moved to follow, but the Baron reached for her arm to stop her.

"I think it's too late for him, Donna Noble," he said.

Donna's temper flared. "So you're just going to give up on him-?!"

The teleportation pad buzzed again. Lamar jumped down from the disk, moving to remove his sister from Katja's side. "Stand back, Hal, he-he's going to regenerate."

"What?!" Halcyon spun around, looking up at Lamar's grim face. "But he's so young-!"

"Halcyon, think about the time," Lamar said, glancing at Donna, before turning back to his sister, looking down at her meaningfully.

Halcyon visibly swallowed, stealing herself. She nodded, and walked back towards Donna.

"Come on, we have to go to the Circle," she said.

"But Katja-" Donna said, angry and frustrated.

"He'll...he'll be okay, he'll come talk to us soon. But for now we have to go," Halcyon started leading Donna away. Donna, startled by the strangled quality of Halcyon's voice, turned back as Halcyon pulled her down the corridor and saw Katja covered in a strange gold light. The Baron's arm was around Lamar's slumped shoulders as they watched.

There was something familiar about this too, something that made Donna afraid for Katja, and also very, very sad. Tears pricked the back of her eyes, but she did not know if it was the pain from her headache, or the feelings that felt like a memory, long forgotten.

_"It's starting."_

_Golden light coruscating beneath the skin of his hands, over his long fingers._

_She was afraid for her dearest friend and she didn't understand why._

Donna blinked back the tears that threatened to form during the flash of pain in her mind, and trudged on next to Halcyon. She was getting tired of the lack of answers she was getting from these people. Or lack of answers that made sense. But she knew they were genuinely trying to help her, even if she couldn't understand most of what was going on.

Also Donna thought being on an alien world, running for her life, and ending up in alien buildings with talkative aliens didn't seem as strange as it should have been.

And she wanted to help them. It was one of those situations where Donna knew she had to make the best out of the bad. Live in the moment. The world back home was falling apart, had been at war for a long while, and Donna knew what a toll it could take on a people. And when she thought about it, really thought about it, she was being helped by some of them, siblings, when they had an obligation to help their own people too, the ones shooting down flying saucers outside. Instead, Halcyon was leading Donna through the weirdest looking bunker she had ever seen.

The corridors had a twisting quality that that made no dimensional sense. Three right turns and you were supposed to be back where you started, right? It was almost like the coral rooms were shifting as they walked. And it seemed to go on, in all directions. There was also a mechanical humming that reminded Donna of something and yet nothing she could put her finger on.

"This place is huge. It must be under the whole desert plane," Donna said.

"No," Halcyon said, "It's just bigger on the inside." And then she went on describing the physics behind it. Something about "relative dimensions"...

They passed other people along the way, and to Donna's further annoyance and confusion, they reacted quite similarly to the Baron.

"Halcyon, you're back! So that must be-!"

"Is that who I think it is-?!"

"Donna Noble, as I live and breathe!"

" _The_ Donna Noble?!"

"What are they all doing down here anyway?" Donna said crossly to Halcyon, "Isn't there a war outside or something?"

Halcyon smiled at her. "It's not every day you get to meet the woman that saved all of creation. Whole universes form around you. There's no one quite like you anywhere, anytime, Donna Noble."

Donna was ready to retort, but there was a flash of searing hot pain behind her eyes. Donna hissed and stumbled into the wall, shutting her eyes as though they could shut out the pain.

"Donna."

Donna blinked through her blurry vision. Halcyon had moved to stand in front of her. Donna looked down at the short woman and tried to smile. "Sorry," she said, "Normally I try to be the life of the party when I meet people for the first time, but I'm just so confused and worried, and my temper can get the better of me."

"That's okay," Halcyon said, with a small smile, but it didn't reach her eyes, "Gallifrey hasn't been much of a party town lately anyway."

Donna tried to smile back, but found the pain was getting worse again. "This isn't what it's normally like. Usually I get a headache once a day at the most. Now it just keeps coming back, ever since everyone on Earth changed into that git..." Donna stopped. She looked down at Halcyon.

"Halcyon, do you know why I didn't change? Like everyone else on Earth?"

Halcyon bit her lip. "I do. But I'm not sure how much I can tell you now while your mind is unstable."

"I'm getting tired of these half-answers, Missy-"

"I know you are," Halcyon said, reaching out to grip Donna's arms with her hands. "But you should know. I've got a special gift, ever since I became a Time Lady. I can...see future timelines a bit more clearly, more detailed." She grimaced, and turned away, like she had an unpleasant taste in her mouth. "It can be a struggle. It's harder to...to know what is happening in the now and what is happening in the future. Like they're blending together." Halcyon looked back up and Donna was swept under the by the alien, endless quality of the other woman's eyes. "Sometimes we go mad," Halcyon whispered.

_That's how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see: what is, what was, what could be, what must not._

_That's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna._

_And I'm the only one left._

_"Well, that can't be right, Spaceman. I'm talking to another one of you lot right now and she's as real as you or me. But I can only understand half of what she says, and I'm not sure why I understand that half-"_

The confusing, aching memory burned away in her mind and Donna looked back at Halcyon. "How do you cope?" Donna asked, softening.

And then Halcyon really smiled. "I look for those bright, shining moments in Time and I do whatever I can to converge on them," she said, "Like you, Donna Noble. All Time, all Dimensions, all of Space converges on you and it's _brilliant._ And I saw you'd get here and I saw we could help you before...well _before_...and so we are."

"You don't even know me-"

"You keep forgetting, everyone knows you!" Halcyon said, grabbing her hand and pulling her along. "Don't worry, we're almost there."

 _Blimey, these aliens have no qualms about personal space, do they?_ Donna wondered.

"Here we are then," Halcyon said. Donna and Halcyon turned another corner and ducked under an arch into a room that didn't look like any hospital Donna had seen, and she had been to a lot of hospitals. It was large with a very high ceiling like an antechamber. And sparse. There was only one other person, standing with her back to them, in the corner with some monitors in front of her. She was the only one Donna had seen so far that was dressed in something besides the dark uniform. But the red and gold robes seemed out of place in comparison.

Halcyon walked forward, talking again in that language Donna first heard Lamar speaking, a lilting, and complex series of sounds that Donna wasn't even sure she could make with human vocal chords. Yet, Donna thought, once again she could understand the meaning of their exchange.

 _"Empty today?"_ Halcyon asked.

 _"Not so many of us left to get injured,"_ the woman replied, the phrase ringing strongly of dark humor.

The woman turned, her demeanor bright and inquisitive. She looked older than Donna, with streaks of white in her chestnut curls, olive skin, and a nose Donna would describe as Roman.

"Donna Noble, this is the Circle," Halcyon said, waving a hand between the two of them as she made introductions. "Circle, this is Donna Noble."

The Circle's dark eyes widened. " _The_ Donna Noble-?!"

"Yes, _the_ bloody Donna Noble!" Donna said, irritably. "Is this supposed to be a hospital or something? Can I get an aspirin then? And I wouldn't mind a cup of tea. Oh, and, I don't know, maybe a spaceship to get me back to my own damn planet-" Donna was again at her wit's end with these Martians, their weird underground building that made no structural sense, and the fact that she wasn't getting any answers whatsoever.

But it seemed they still weren't listening. "I'm sorry, but...'Circle?'" the Circle asked Halcyon.

"Don't look at me," Halcyon said, lifting her hands up in defense.

"Hello, my love!"

Donna turned to see Lamar walking in with a strange man trailing not far behind. Lamar strode across the room and swept the Circle up with one arm around her waist, spinning her once before setting her back down.

The Circle looked up at Lamar with a cocked eyebrow. "'The Circle?'" she asked pointedly.

"It's hard to translate your name into Sol III English-"

"Yes, but...'the Circle' sounds a little silly. What did you go with?"

"Lamar," the man Donna didn't know said, moving to stand next to Halcyon.

"But that's Sol III French, not English! Why do you get to use French and I don't?" the Circle asked Lamar.

"My name sounded better in French!"

 _Yeah, they're definitely a married couple,_ Donna thought. Watching them bicker made her feel like she was forgetting someone. It was Shaun, wasn't it? She pushed at the fog in her mind and it triggered the pinpricks in her shoulders. Donna suddenly wished there was chair somewhere in that huge room...oh, wait, there was one.

 _I didn't notice this here before,_ Donna thought, gratefully sitting down and rubbing her temple with her right hand.

"Oi! Where do you get off stealing my face?!" Halcyon demanded of the young man next to her.

Donna looked up at them. The stranger definitely had the same coloring and many similar facial structures Halcyon did, right down to identical noses and chins. They could be siblings-

"Is that you, Katja?" the Circle asked, surprised, and if Donna wasn't mistaken, distressed as well.

"Yes," Katja said, rubbing his chin with his hand. "I was shot with a retroactive genetic desynthesizer dart when we went across the desert to find Donna. I had to regenerate. First time I ever did. I didn't realize it would feel so..." Katja trailed off, his eyes deep and sad. He turned to Halcyon, forcing a smile. "But this way we look more like siblings, don't we Hal?"

Halcyon just shook her head.

"Wait, but-" Donna said. The four of them turned to her. "How can you be Katja? I saw him on the floor back...back by the teleportation room, and-" Confusion and guilt swept through Donna, but she didn't understand why. It felt like ice water was being poured over her, and it made her head throb.

"It's not your fault, Donna," Katja said to her, moving to kneel by the chair. "It's something our species does to survive. Before we die, we regenerate into completely new bodies. And...well, it's a war out there. Many of us have regenerated." This new Katja shrugged. "New body, new life."

Donna didn't think that was something the young man in front of her was simply shrugging off, despite what he said. A new face, a new body, with all the quirks of chemistry and personality that comes with being a different person? To have to go up to your loved ones with a new face, completely different from the one they grew to love, and hoping they could love the new you as much as the old. Hoping that you could still love them the same way. "It must be jarring to the soul," Donna said, looking into the young man's green eyes. They really did remind her exactly of looking into Katja's blue ones earlier, when they were standing in the desert.

Katja smiled at her. "It is," he said.

Donna cocked her head to the side. "That really is you in there, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's me," Katja said.

Donna suddenly felt very overwhelmed by how stressful this was for Katja and she knew she wanted to help him, even just a little bit.

"How many lives do you aliens get?" Donna teased, trying to make Katja's smile reach his too sad eyes.

"There are many schools of thought on that, Donna Noble," the Circle said, moving to stand next to her. "And they make for fascinating conversation, but I think I should look at your head. You look like you're in a lot of pain." The Circle was standing in front of her chair, leaning in and staring into Donna's face, like she could scan her using nothing but her dark pupils.

"Lamar helped with the pain earlier-" Donna said, staring back at the Circle and blinking in the other woman's unblinking gaze. "Are we having a staring contest?"

"Oh no, I'm rubbish at those," the Circle said, moving away to fiddle with what looked like a control panel.

 _What, did that pop out of the ground?_ Donna wondered.

"Lie back and close your eyes, Donna. The chair is going to shift a bit."

Donna was briefly startled as the chair she was sitting on shifted into something she'd sit in at the dental hygienist’s office, but she lifted her feet obligingly.

"Now I've seen everything," Donna said under her breath.

"I highly doubt that," Lamar said, standing next to the Circle by the control panel.

"Donna, I'm going to give you a medicine that will aid the psychosomatic visuals of your brain, okay?" the Circle said.

 _No, that's not bloody okay!_ the panicked part of Donna almost said, the words caught on her tongue. But she swallowed them. Donna didn't understand why such an idea triggered that same feeling of panic she had when Lamar helped her earlier. 

It seemed she didn't understand much of anything anymore.

"Of course," she said hoarsely.

The Circle held an instrument up to the skin on Donna's neck. Donna felt a coolness enter her skin, but no needles, no pain.

Donna thought about how often she'd been at the hospital giving samples for tests and how nice it would have been nice to have this alien kind of medicine at home.

"Give me a brain scan, would you dear?" the Circle said to Lamar.

Donna looked over at Lamar as he pressed buttons on the machine in front of him. His tongue was pushing out his cheek, a youthful look of concentration on his face.

"Hold still, Donna Noble," the Circle said.

Donna turned back and looked up. A holographic image of her brain was hovering over her head.

"Well isn't that wizard?" Donna said.

The Circle chuckled. "I suppose it is."

Donna watched the Circle manipulate the image of her brain with her fingers like she was using a touchscreen, isolating a bit here, expanding it there. As she concentrated, she did the same thing with her tongue and cheek that Lamar did. Donna laughed to herself.

Parts of her brain lit up blue as she did.

"What's so funny?" the Circle asked, smiling.

"You and your husband act alike," Donna said. "How did you end up together? He's so much younger than you."

"Actually, he's a good three centuries older than me," the Circle said, highlighting a part of the temporal lobe. "He just regenerated into that younger body to make me feel old."

"Lucky I did, we really didn't like each other during my last life," Lamar said.

The Circle smiled. "No, I guess we didn't."

Donna frowned, thinking of Katja, and how he had regenerated. _New body, new face, new voice._ What would it be like to be married to someone and to have them turn into an entirely new person, someone you found you didn't even like?

The idea made her weary and sad, and her brain took on a red color.

"Blimey, look at that! That's a right proper Time Lord brain after all!" Katja said. He and Halcyon had moved to stand next to Donna's chair as the Circle looked over the brain scan.

"Is that what I think it is-"? Halcyon asked, pointing to the image.

"Yes, it's the chronical lobe," the Circle said. "It likely wasn't as big after the initial metacrisis, but it's there now."

"You mean that gray matter growth in between my temporal and occipital lobes?" Donna asked.

Three pairs of alien eyes looked down at her. 

"Wot?" Donna asked, puzzled. 

"I didn't realize you had an interest in human anatomy and physiology, Donna! Yes, that's what we were looking at, but I wouldn't call it a growth. It's actually a whole new lobe, unique to Time Lord brains you see, complete with white _and_ gray matter! You must have adapted. Humans Beings are so clever with their ability to adapt so quickly, aren't they, Lamar? Surprisingly resilient bodies if you ask me. It's a wonder your human doctors didn't catch it on one of their MRIs and try to cut it out, thinking it was cancer or something-" the Circle said.

"I haven't had an MRI in a while," Donna said, "And actually, I'm not sure how I knew that. About the brain, I mean," she added, trying to get a word in edgewise with the babbling alien doctor. _The endless prattling must be a cultural thing,_ Donna thought.

"It's probably the Time Lord consciousness trying to adapt your brain to your human body," the Circle said.

"So the metacrisis didn't extend to any other part of her physiology?" Halcyon asked.

"I'd have to do more tests," the Circle said, "But I doubt it. The metacrisis energy would burn her away before her genomic makeup could adapt any further."

"Hence the migraines, yeah? And why I'm going to die in a decade or two," Donna said.

She looked up at the three pairs of eyes looking down at her again. For curiosity's sake, Donna turned to see if Lamar was also looking. _Yep, he's staring too. Daft Martians._

"How do you know that?" Katja asked.

"I'm not as dim as I look, Katja! Just because you're a bunch of multicentennial hyperintelligent aliens that like to talk about a bunch of useless facts doesn't mean I can't be smart too," Donna said. "And the insane freak that attacked me right before I woke up here told me as much." She looked up at the floating holographic image of her brain while the aliens processed that information. "Is that reading normal?" she asked, pointing at a red circle in the corner. She wasn't sure how she knew it was a number and why it was a problem, but the words _critical value_ kept flashing across her mind.

"The amount of information in your mind is overwhelming and burning out the neurochemical connections in your brain. Any other human being and you would have burnt out instantly. You have a very special brain, Donna Noble," the Circle said.

"Don't be stupid-" Donna said.

"I'm not," the older woman said, offended, "I'm very, very clever. But that's not the point. The point is I think I can help you avoid burning death. I'll have to rewire the neurokinetic pathways of your previously human brain to make them compatible with your new Time Lord brain, while also making sure the Time Lord brain is maintaining a human body, and not a Gallifreyan one. Wouldn't want you to get hypothermia because your brain is wrong..." The Circle stopped, hesitating.

"What is it?" Lamar asked.

"Well...you see..." The Circle looked down at Donna. Donna was surprised that she had been following along with a relative amount of understanding. It suddenly dawned on her.

"I have a Time Lord mind," Donna said, a statement, not a question.

"Yes. That's why you didn't change with the other humans. You're not strictly human anymore," Halcyon said.

"But...I've never met any of you lot before, how the hell did that happen?!" Donna demanded, sitting up. The holograph immediately shut off.

"Donna, please lie back down," Katja said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "We're trying to help."

"Your memory has been blocked, to keep your human body from burning away." The Circle moved around the chair, turning to look Donna in the eyes, cocking her hip against the edge of the seat. "I-I'm going to have to take down the block before I can start rewiring. And then when I'm done, all the knowledge you had while the Time Lord mind was active will be gone. You'll have to start from scratch. I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you different. I'm not even sure if you'll keep your memories from that time," the Circle said.

"So the time before my accident? Those two years I lost?"

"I doubt you would have survived two years with an active Time Lord mind, but it's not like I know everything, even if I like to think I do" the Circle said, smiling.

"So I might not get my memory back?" Donna asked. Her face fell.

"You won't get it back simply. Your mind has been through a trauma. Getting any of the memories back will be just as traumatic, actually. You might get them back, you might not, and you might get them back in pieces. But you'll live once we're done...there's just this one other thing," the Circle said.

Donna felt the mood change in the room instantly. She looked around at the grim, sad, almost wistful faces.

"What's wrong?" Donna asked.

"To live through this, you need regenerative energy. It's the energy Time Lords use when we get injured-"

"My body is going to change?! Like him?!" Donna pointed at Katja. "No bloody way, I don't think-!"

"No! Not like that! The energy heals our more minor wounds too, even major ones if we can get into a healing coma in time. But your body is mostly human, and you don't have enough of your own. We'll...have to give you ours. Or rather, Halcyon, Lamar and Katja volunteered theirs," the Circle said.

Donna looked at the three people that saved her that day. Three people that, in the short hours she knew them, she already felt connected to.

"Why all of you?" Donna asked.

"Your brain is going to be burning up by the second, Donna. It's going to be burning away your body, even as the Circle is rewiring that big mind of yours. The only way you're going to live, the only way your body will adapt before it dies, is if all of us help you," Lamar said.

"That's why I saw you in the future. You're part of my personal future. Our personal futures," Halcyon said, grinning at Donna.

"But...won't you die? If you give me all your regenerating energy or whatever, what happens if you get shot by another one of those saucers with the lasers?" Donna asked.

Their hesitation was all the answer she needed.

"No," Donna said, shaking her head at them. "No, I don't care if you're over three hundred years old, five hundred years old, or five thousand! I'm not letting you three do that for me. I'm not as important as you think I am. I'm a temp from Chiswick-"

"No, Donna, you're not _just_ anything," Lamar said. He was moving to stand next to Halcyon on the right side of Donna's chair. Katja was on her left, the three of them formed a semicircle in front of her. They were all smiling at her and that made her unreasonable angry. What sort of insane bunch would be happy in a time like that?!

"I know you probably won't remember it, but you might someday. You saved all of creation, Donna Noble. All of it. And we...we aren't long for this world anyway. As it were-" Lamar said.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Donna demanded.

Lamar shook his head, avoiding the answer. "Donna, please let us do this."

"No, I can't, I can see how important this is for you, to live, to win this war," Donna said, gesticulating at Katja and his new face, "And I'm not worth it. Really, I'm not. What if you do this and the next laser or poison gets you? What about your families?!" Donna asked.

There was a change in the faces around her. Less wistfulness, more sadness. A heaviness in the air that pierced her heart and she felt like she might cry.

"All we have left is each other now," Halcyon whispered, "There isn't anyone else."

Donna felt the tear she tried to hold back fall down her cheek.

"Let us help you, Donna. Please?" Katja asked.

There was a lingering familiarity Donna felt about Gallifrey. There was a strange affection she carried for these aliens. She hadn't known them long. She was scared for her own family, and also scared for them. She didn't want them to do this. But there was something earnest, honest, and a sense of finality in their request. And if she _could just remember_ she knew she'd understand why.

She didn't want them to die. They were already special to her. But even if she let them do this, she felt they would still die.

_"Burning for centuries in this neverending war."_

"All right," she consented. "All right."

"Good," the Circle said, coming back around to face Donna, her own eyes damp. "Lie back down, Donna. This will be over before you know it."

Donna lied back down, and closed her eyes. There was heaviness in her heart that made her take a shuddering breath, trying to relieve it. One of the siblings took her hand, but she wasn't sure who. They comforted her by rubbing their thumb over the back of her palm. She smiled.

_"We will be here when you wake up."_

* * *

_We are gathered for the end._

The Doctor held the revolver like he had been holding guns for the whole of his lives, like an extension of his arm. He clicked the safety off, glaring at Lord President Rassilon, the most dangerous man in the whole of the universe.

With the exception of himself.

He was acutely aware of his surroundings. He was aware of Wilf, trapped in the radiation booth. He was aware of the council of Time Lords in front of him and the rest of the Earth, assured that they had undone everything the Doctor worked for to prevent the end of time. He was aware of the Master behind him, calculating the Doctor's next move.

He was aware of the ring of ginger hair around the Master's finger.

The Lord President sneered at him. "Choose your enemy well. We are Many. The Master is but One."

He was still. He was present in that moment, in the Eye of the Storm, the gun a comfortable weight in his hand, aimed between the Lord President's impossibly ancient eyes.

"But he's the President!" The Master said. The Doctor could hear arrogance in his voice. "Kill him and Gallifrey could be yours!"

The solution was so simple. He just had to become the force of destruction that he was. That he could never escape from.

The Doctor turned, aiming the revolver at the Master instead.

The Master's smirk dissolved, replaced with fury. "He's to blame, not me!" _He's the one that wants to destroy everything!_

A fraction of a second passed. A fraction later, and the Master knew which scenario played out in the Doctor's sight. Which of the timelines he could see.

"Oh," the Master said, realization dawning on his face, "The link is inside my head. Kill me, the link gets broken, they go back."

The Doctor stared at the man that was once his best friend.

The Master shifted slightly. He cocked his head and smiled slowly, bringing his right hand to his left to deliberately caress the ring of hair around his finger.

"And everyone, everyone trapped on the other side of the Time Lock created by the Oncoming Storm, will die," the Master said, not breaking eye contact with the Doctor.

The Doctor clenched his jaw. He thought about the only person in the whole of the universe that could temper the Storm when he was in this state. He thought of her laugh lighting up his home, her patience and tenderness when he needed someone to pull him back from darkness. How intuitive and clever she was, pulling out the answers when he was too befuddled to see them. She was as violently compassionate and awe-inspiring as a meteor shower, and just as beautiful, if not infinity more so, to anyone who had the privilege to observe her.

It wasn't even a decision.

_The world was burning down all around them. The Doctor could smell almost nothing beyond the overwhelming brimstone from the volcano. The scent reminded him of another burning planet, tectonic plates falling apart, magma burning through to the surface. A city that reached the stars suddenly and violently falling to the surface, the air filled with smoke._

_He pushed the memory back and clung to Donna's hand, berating himself because he couldn't protect her._

_The Doctor shared the nature his burden with her, and by some miracle she had understood. They had been fighting all day and their emotions were running very high, and he just told her. And she looked up at him, her eyes gray in the light of the fire, and he could read every emotion on her face._

_"Nevermind us," Donna had told him, her eyes warm and so sad, when he realized they wouldn't make it out of Pompeii alive._

_And then she held his hands as he hovered over the lever that would kill thousands, willing to share that burden, that heaviness, his life with him. And he thought, there on the edge of destruction, that Donna Noble just saved his life again._

_She would hate me if I was anything less than who I am because of her,_ he thought.

When the Doctor refused to back down, the Master's face faltered. He swallowed heavily, shaking his head, betraying his fear.

The Oncoming Storm turned again, aiming the revolver at the Lord President.

"Exactly!" the Master cried, in triumphant relief. "It's not just me, it's him! He's the link! Kill him!"

The Doctor looked at the Lord President, the single most infamous man in the history of his people. There was a cold insanity about Rassilon now - he had lost everything that had made him great during the endless war. The Master wasn't the only one that had gone mad from the Time War. _Perhaps we all have,_ the Doctor thought.

The Lord President sneered at him again. The Doctor knew he truly believed himself incapable of succumbing to death, to the Time Lock that blocked Gallifrey and the any forces that would end time.

"The final act of your life is murder," the Lord President said, "But which one of us?"

The Doctor was breathing heavily. His repertory bypass had kicked it, helping shunt oxygenated blood to his injured body and overworked mind. In order to save creation, he had to murder someone in cold blood to stop the signal in the Master's head. Either the psychopath, who was also his oldest friend, or the dangerous man before him, Rassilon, who had founded his ancient and powerful race, who he still revered, because that reverence was built into his blood. The blood of the Time Lords.

A thought whispered across his mind. It was achingly familiar. The Doctor turned his head slowly as the woman behind Rassilon revealed her face, familiar and beloved.

The Doctor looked into her old eyes as she looked between him and the Master, and his hearts broke anew, and he felt like he never healed from the pain he felt since the Time Lock went up all those years ago, when he lost his family forever.

He felt the sorrow, compassion, and love roll into him from her mind as she gazed at them, a tear rolling down her cheek. The Doctor felt the bitterness in his war-laden soul ebb away, to be replaced by sadness and regret. He had lost his people once. He was losing them again. He was losing more than that.

The Doctor turned back to the man with the ring of hair around his finger. The Master looked into his eyes and the Doctor could see how raw his emotions were, tears in the Master's eyes, now that the other man knew he has been used and he was going to die. Everything the Master had done was futile, and now they both knew it.

"Get out of the way," the Doctor growled.

Confusion passed over the Master's features, and he glanced behind, turning back to the Doctor as realization dawned. The Master almost smiled, and he ducked away as the Doctor fired at the white-point star that powered the Immortality Gate. The shot was impossibly loud, the power of the gun throwing his arm up.

He turned back to the Lord President. The man whose eyes seem to go back forever across Time.

"The link is broken!" the Doctor told him, "Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!"

The Doctor took in the fury and bitterness on Rassilon's face. It mirrored his own feelings over the war that turned Gallifrey into Hell.

"You die with me, Doctor!" the Lord President said, raising his glove.

_Your song is ending._

Gallifrey was gone. His people were gone. The Most Important Woman in All Creation was gone.

"I know," the Doctor said, resigned to his fate.

As the gate between reality and the Time Lock collapsed, the Doctor stood erect in the face of death.

"Get out of the way," the Master said behind him.

The Doctor looked behind, and then dove away as the Master fired a bolt of power at the man that destroyed their lives.

The Master was raging at the Lord President, his fury and bolts of vortex energy shooting from his hands making him more unstable. His body flickered in and out of temporal sync as he fired bolt after bolt of lightning at the Lord President, counting them off to the drum beats the Doctor knew were still playing in the other man's head. The Doctor watched, horrified, as the light of the Immortality Gate increased, and then the Master disappeared along with the Time Lords and all of Gallifrey, trapped once again in the Time Lock.

The Doctor breathed in and out. He was lying on the floor trying to catch his breath. Through his despair, giddy hope welled up in his chest. He wasn't sure what it meant, didn't dare to hope, even if he did anyway, but at least...he was still alive.

He struggled up, taking note of the pain in his body, proof that he was there. "I'm alive," he gasped, emotions overwhelming him, and he sobbed in grief, pain, in relief, "I'm still alive-!"

And then the Doctor heard four soft knocks break the calm after the Storm.


	4. Chapter 4

"Donna!"

Donna was running. Down hallways. Down streets and through cities. Over hills, mountains, planets, star systems and galaxies. She was running through the universe. Her feet were arching, movement lifting her from the pavement and going through her knees, into her thighs, propelling her forward through the muscles of her core, into her shoulders, down to her fingertips as she lifted and lowered her arms, bent at the elbow, to keep her body going.

_"Donna!"_

Wind running through her hair. Wind flowing through her lungs. That was a trick she learned from all the running - keep her breathing steady, it kept her going fast. The other trick she learned was wear shoes with a comfortable arch and two sport bras, both of which kept the pain down to a minimum.

"Not that I'm having a terrible time," shouted the voice next to her, "because this is actually quite bracing but why exactly are we running like this, Donna?!"

Donna turned, grabbed Katja's hand, and kept running.

"A barren planet, how exciting!" Katja shouted, and he did sound ridiculously excited about it.

"Duck behind here!" Donna said, diving behind a rock face.

Katja fell next to her, a huge smile on his face. "I've never been on an alien planet before! What, with being born in the middle of the Last Great Time War, I never had a chance for travel! Ridiculous, for a Time Lord, but what can you do-"

Donna slapped her hand over his mouth. "Will. You. Shut. Your gob?!" she whispered harshly.

Katja nodded his head enthusiastically. Donna moved her hand.

"But you really shouldn't worry about getting caught, Donna. This is just your memory after all-" Katja said.

"For the love of Jesus, Katja, SHUT UP!"

"I heard something, sir! This way!" Donna heard one of the soldiers say, accompanied by the mechanical sounds of transceiver radio communication. 

Donna looked up to the sky in exasperation before glaring at Katja. "Oh goody, looks like we're running again, Martian boy!"

They were running in a swamp. The branches were like hands, the trees like mouths. They ran over brambles and brooks and streams. The swamp was trying to devour them. Donna was afraid, but there was something about the running, about the urgency, that was exhilarating, almost joyfully so. Her body was waking up. Any moment now she felt her feet would completely lift off the ground and she would fly.

"I feel so alive," she thought aloud, and it was like she hadn't been living for months.

"Do you run a lot in your memories, Donna Noble-" Katja said, leaping over a rock as they crossed a brook, one of the hands sweeping down to try and knock them into the water.

"What are you talking about?!" Donna demanded.

"I mean for a temp from Chiswick, you spent a lot of time running around on hostile alien planets!"

_"Don-naaa!"_

There was a rushing pressure in her head. Colors and lights and sounds convalescing, trying to form the memories. It didn't hurt, not like the pressure usually did, but it was overwhelming and she was over sensitized from it. Donna tried to shake the feeling off as she and Katja ran through the living swamp, but it only got worse. She could almost hear the familiar, manic whine, someone shouting her name-

_"Don-"_

"Oi, Sunshine, why do you keep screaming my name like that?!" Donna yelled.

Katja was three leaping steps ahead of her. He stopped and turned around, blinking his green eyes at her as she started running past him. "I'm not!" he shouted, running beside her again, "Did you hear another voice then? It's probably memory recall. Are you remembering something?! You're usually running with someone else through these alien planets, aren't you-?!"

They were running through a warehouse filled with connexes, zipping between them, twisting and turning like a maze. Their footsteps echoed off the walls and high ceilings as they ran. It made it seem like there were a lot more people running in the warehouse than the two of them, and she knew any second now there would be.

"We have to hide!" Donna said. She grabbed Katja's hand and started pulling at the connex doors, trying to find an open one.

"Donna, for some reason the first place you went in your subconscious when you started getting your memories back is to these places where you experienced high adrenaline. Why is that? Why are you running? Who are you running from?" Katja asked, looking hard at her face as they ran from door to door.

"Will you shut up and help me already?! Or do you want to captured by a bunch of slave traders?!"

"Slave traders?!" Katja said, as Donna finally found an unlocked door, and they walked inside.

They were in a concrete room with a computer panel on one wall.

"Where are we now, Donna?" Katja asked.

Donna turned. And started when she really looked at him.

"Have you been wearing that the whole time?!" she asked incredulously.

Katja looked down at his clothes. The uniform had disappeared, replaced by a tailored, twenty-first century charcoal suit with a shiny pumpkin shirt. He looked back at Donna with a curious expression on his face. "Don't you like it?" he asked, "It's what I usually like to wear. Except for the pumpkin, I never did wear this color back when I was a ginger-"

"Yeah, I get that," she said, for some reason completely nonplussed. "Do all of you Time Lord blokes wear suits?" Donna asked him, rolling her eyes.

Katja turned to face her and his terribly alien eyes were looking closely into hers again, as if he was searching for something hidden inside them. "Not at all," he said, "What do you mean all of us Time Lords?"

Donna swallowed. The pressure in her head was back, trying to form the pieces together, trying to make her see...see what?

See who?

_...reached for her hand, grasping it tightly with his long fingers so he wouldn't lose her, as they ran, leapt, and dived from danger, his brown coat billowing around his shins as she tried to keep up with his impossibly fast pace..._

"I think it's time to start running again!" Donna cried, and ran out the door before Katja could protest.

"Donna! Donna, wait!"

_"Donna, come on!"_

"STOP IT!" Donna shouted over the boom of a distant canon. She started running away from the sounds of guns and canons, away from the smoke and sounds of war.

"Where are we now?! Earth again at least, yes? What's with the canons?!"

"Nothing much, just the revolutionaries making a bit of a tizzy across the pond. Mad King George and all that," Donna answered as Katja caught up to her. "Not sure where that owl-eyed nutter went off to, he said something about lasers and osmic projection and manipulating terran history and warfare-"

"Who said that, Donna?" Katja asked, grabbing her arm, slowing them down to a stop.

Donna turned and looked at him, confused. "Why did we stop running? We never stop running. Seriously, there's a ridiculous amount of running involved-"

"Donna," Katja said, taking her face in his hands so he could see her eyes. She looked up at him, focused on his face. "Involved in what, Donna?"

Donna shook her head. It was cold and dark, so cold she could see the vapors of their breaths between them. Her whole body was thrumming with suppressed movement. The only thing she wanted to do was _run...run...run..._

"Are you running towards or away from something, Donna?" Katja asked.

Donna kept shaking her head, shaking Katja's hands off. She turned back towards the hill they were running away from. Any second and a man in a brown coat was supposed to be running down after her, with his wild eyes and wild hair and wild voice telling her to start running back to the TARDIS-

"Towards," Donna whispered, "I'm running towards something." The energy in her body vibrated through her skin and she shuddered. " _Someone,_ " she whispered.

She started running towards the hill.

She was running in a dark library, books falling off the shelves, landing with their spines open and pages rippling in the breeze.

She was running in a dark, urban street, away from a horde of ridiculous looking goth, cannibal vampires.

She was running through a tunnel of thick polyethylene, deep under water, fearsome bioluminescent sea creatures sniping at her from above.

She was running over rocks, over the rumbling earth, with ash falling from the sky all around her.

"Donna!" she heard Katja saying behind her. She would have turned, but she couldn't.

She was transfixed by the figure in front of her, reaching to grasp her hand in his.

The man in the brown coat. The wild, impossible man with the oldest eyes she had ever seen. And when she looked at him, she felt her mind shifting as the earth did below her feet, felt her heart erupt like the volcano in the distance.

"Come with me," the Doctor said.

"Anywhere," Donna said, taking his hand and holding it so tight, afraid she would lose him if she let go, "Anywhere," she repeated, "anywhere and everywhere."

They were running together, over earth and rocks, and Donna couldn't take her eyes off of him. She drank in the way he looked as they struggled to run over the rough terrain, his eyes wide, his pulse visible under the skin of neck, his hair sticking out in every direction because she knew he couldn't stop running his hands through it. The ground suddenly dipped, and Donna tripped over a rock. She lost sight of him, lost the feeling of his hand in hers, as she stumbled forward, landing on her hands and knees on the metal grating beneath her. When she looked up he was gone.

"No!" Donna sobbed, "He was here, it wasn't a dream, I saw him, he was actually here, that brilliant, dazzling, utterly _stupid_ man-!"

"Yes, I saw," Katja shouted, clinging to the grating next to her. "You're starting to remember him, I think he somehow centers in your memory loss-!"

They were falling into the burning center of the Crucible. Donna's heart was pounding in her ears. She could actually feel the blood flowing through her veins and arteries like hundreds of rivers because it was going so fast. Over her heartbeat she could hear another, echoing in her mind.

Donna hung her head crying, because she was so frustrated, so angry, and so scared. "I've been so empty for so long. And it hurt so much..." Through her grief, the heartbeat was strong in her chest, in her mind. She looked at the hand beneath the council. It glowed.

"Is this what happened?" Katja shouted, "Did you touch the regeneration energy? Is that how you changed?"

Donna looked up at him. "Katja, what does this mean? What happened to me?" Words and images were swirling around her head. The Ood and their song. The woman at the Shadow Proclamation. River Song and her grief stricken face as when she realized Donna's name. The Daleks and their terrible prophecy.

The man in the brown coat staring at her with eyes so open and sad that she could see he was breaking apart.

"Katja," Donna said, choking on her tears, "was I supposed to die?"

Donna noticed Katja was very pale. He was gripping the grating and breathing heavily, staring straight ahead with intense concentration like it took everything in him just to do that much. But he shook himself, took a deep breath, and looked at her with determination in his alien eyes. "Donna Noble," he said, "You are the most important woman in creation. You have braved time and space. You have defeated our greatest enemy. And you are my friend!" he said. He took a shuddering breath and Donna wished she could go to help him, but they were falling too fast and she could hardly move.

Katja steeled himself, his jaw clenched. "It doesn't matter what was supposed to happen! It doesn't matter if you were supposed to die to save creation! Time can be rewritten! And in your case, it will be! Because that is what you deserve!" Katja shouted at her, his face drawn, but his words passionate, "You, madame, are going to live!"

Donna blinked at him. The heartbeat reached a crescendo, filling her with a sudden sense of purpose, shaking her to the bone. She knew what she had to do. Donna turned, and reached out for the glowing hand.

Everything went black.

* * *

_Who was that man?_

"He's amazing. He's just...dazzling! And never tell him I said that...but I trust him with my life," Donna said.

As she finished speaking, she found herself at her mother's kitchen table, her grandfather across from her, warning her not to tell her mother.

She tried to recall the person she was just describing, but the memory was falling away from her like sand in an hourglass. It was like all her missing memories were trying to piece themselves together, but couldn't because they revolved around this man, like he was the focus of her memory loss. She couldn't remember them if she couldn't remember him.

Halcyon was sitting at the table next to her, happily biting into a biscuit she soaked in her tea.

"I sure love tea. There's scarcely a more perfect beverage than tea," Halcyon said, inhaling the vapors coming out of her cup. "So many cultures all over the universe brew some kind of tea, did you know? I'd go so far to say it's the natural order of the universe to drink tea-"

Donna was only half listening to the alien, instead focusing on her Gramps. His eyes were sparkling, his face wrinkling in delight, as he told her another story about how he knew aliens existed.

She interrupted him by reaching across the table and taking his hands in hers. Wilf smiled questioningly at her. "What's wrong, my girl?" he asked.

"Gramps," Donna said, tearfully, "I just love you so much."

Wilf chuckled and squeezed Donna's hands. "I love you too, Donna, you know that," he said, and he got up, patting her hands as he set them back down on the table. "Why don't I put the kettle back on?"

"I'd love a fresh cuppa," Halcyon said, "And some more of those biscuits-"

Donna watched her grandfather move to the kitchen, trying to memorize the familiar movements he made as he whistled to himself and prepared their tea.

"You all right?"

Donna turned to Halcyon. She had a wistful smile on her face, a knowing look in her eyes that reminded Donna she was older than she looked.

"I-I don't know. I'm so _worried_ about him. The last time I heard his voice was when I called his mobile and that psychopath was on the line..." Donna stopped, turning back to look at Wilf in the kitchen, "I feel as though I'll never see Gramps again...and I don't know what I'd do without him."

Donna felt a tear roll down her cheek. Halcyon reached across the table and took her hand. She looked back at her.

"You'll always have your memories. Like this one," Halcyon said.

"I know," Donna said. She cocked her head to the side, looking at her. "Did you have grandparents?" she asked.

Halcyon whistled. "Yes, I did. Had great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents, and ancestors beyond that living in the house, though at that point one wonders just how much of the genetic code has recombined from what theirs is."

"Must have been a big house," Donna said dryly.

"Bigger on the inside at any rate," Halcyon agreed. Her face brightened. "Like this place here!"

Donna turned and looked around at the galley kitchen with its strangely curved ceiling. They were sitting together at a cozy breakfast nook, hot mugs of tea still in their hands.

"Why does everything keep changing?" she asked, exasperated, wiping the last signs of her tears from her face with the palms of both hands. "Why do I know what's going on when it's happening and forget everything as soon as I see one of you lot again?"

"You're not forgetting, not really. Your subconscious is sorting through your lost memories before integrating them back into your mind. Think of it as a mix between dreaming and remembering, only this is a lot less chaotic than the way humans usually dream, because your mind is half-Time Lord now." She looked at her tea thoughtfully. "I wonder why most the memories I'm experiencing with you are tea related-"

"So you're actually here? And Katja was actually here earlier? Experiencing my memories or dreams or what have you-?" Donna asked.

"Sort of," Halcyon said, "We're integrated into your memories in the way your mind thinks would be the least intrusive as it tries to make sense of your memory loss. Using focal points - certain thoughts, feelings, experiences and the like. For example, the smell of tea!" Halcyon said, raising her mug in a toast before taking another large swallow.

Donna took another companionable sip of her tea, trying to make sense of Halcyon's explanation.

"This is a TARDIS galley, yeah? Charming!" Halcyon said. She got up and paced down the galley. Donna noticed her socks were mismatched under her bell bottomed denim trousers, one striped, one with polka dots.

She was startled when the man with wild hair and wild eyes suddenly entered the room, talking so fast it took her a good dozen words to catch on to what he was saying. He had so much energy that his presence instantly filled the room as he went to the kettle and started making fresh tea. Donna felt her pulse quicken as she watched him move about the galley. Her breath started to catch in her throat and she wondered if she was flushed or if the heat she suddenly felt had to do with the hot tea in her hands.

_Who are you-?!_

"-bought more hats than I could possibly use in eight lifetimes, let alone one. I don't know why I let you talk me into going to that planet, well, yes I do, I'm a complete pushover when it comes to shopping and you're my first friend in a long while that enjoys such an indulgence. As much as I do at any rate! But yes, hats, I don't even like wearing hats, so why did I buy so many?! I've already enough hats in the wardrobe, practically hundreds. Top hats, bowlers, stovepipes, fedoras, stetsons, karakuls, deerstalkers...I think I even had a fez at one point-"

"I've never seen you wear a hat," Donna said, leaning her face into her hand as she watched him make his tea. And it was true, she hadn't. But how did she know that-

"Well...this isn't really the face for hats-"

"You're just afraid you'll muck up your hair," Donna said, rolling her eyes.

He glanced at her warily, and then leaned forward so he could see his reflection in the toaster. He pushed around locks of his thick dark hair with his fingers like he couldn't help himself.

Donna chuckled. "Told you so," she said to him, sipping her tea. Then she glared at the now tepid water.

He removed her mug from her hands and handed her fresh one. She accepted it gratefully.

"Not all of us are lucky enough to be gingers with hair that looks fantastic no matter how she wears it," he said, tugging on a lock of her hair affectionately before he sat down across from her.

Donna smiled wryly at him. "According to you. Cheers," Donna said, raising her mug.

"Cheers," he said, grinning at her before sipping his tea.

Donna set the mug down on the coffee table next to her. She tucked her bare feet up on the couch cushion as she looked around. Everything was books. Bookshelves, books on the tables, books on the floor, just books, haphazardly strewn around the room that might have had a semblance of order at one point, but had since fallen into chaos.

"Blimey, I didn't even know there was a fourth book in this series!"

Donna looked up to see Halcyon balanced on a ladder next to one of the bookshelves, looking at an open paperback volume in her hands.

"Jumping around your memories like this is refreshing to say the least, Donna Noble. I like being able to experience tea and books again..."

She looked down at the open book in her lap as Halcyon talked. She picked it up and glanced at the cover. It was _The Notebook_ by Nicholas Sparks. _Why am I torturing myself reading this sob fest again-?_ Donna wondered.

"So it seems we found the focal point of your memory loss earlier," Halcyon said casually. Donna looked up to see the other woman staring at her over her lashes. "How did you two meet?" Halcyon asked, smiling.

"Who?" Donna asked, bemused.

"You know," Halcyon said, snapping the book shut. "The Doctor. How did you meet?"

Donna blinked. "Doctor who-?"

"Donna!"

Donna turned at the familiar whine of his voice as her wild-eyed man bounded into the room in his blue pinstripes and bright red shoes.

"Finally found you! Come on, I finally got her recalibrated! I thought we'd head off to the Dyfkagu galaxy, to the planet Eern't, there are some truly magnificent singing glow worms there that put on magnificent rainbow displays on the stalactites in the ancient caves of-"

"Right now?!" Donna asked, incredulously.

"Of course now, we haven't been anywhere in ages and there's still so much to see! Allon-sy, Donna Noble-" he said, grinning and grabbing her hand. He was pulling her across the couch cushions before Donna managed to get another word in.

"I'm in my pajamas, you prawn!" Donna said, tugging her hand free and sitting up from the supine position he had pulled her into by dragging her across the couch.

He turned to look at her. "Still?! Really now, Donna, you were in your pajamas when I saw you earlier at breakfast, have you been lazing about the library since then-?"

"Think about it, Timeboy, how long ago was that?! You have your fancy-dancy time sense! As a matter of fact, no, I have not been lazing about in my sleepwear all day! Since you were so preoccupied with the TARDIS, I spent the morning baking biscuits, the afternoon ice-skating, and the evening catching up on movies. I just changed back into my pajamas, thank you very much, because it's getting late and I wanted to read a bit before bed," Donna said, resituating herself back on the couch the way she was before being rudely interrupted.

She could almost feel his crestfallen look from where he stood behind her. "But we haven't gone anywhere yet today, Donna-!"

"Don't fuss at me, it's not like the glow worms are going anywhere. We can go see them when I wake up tomorrow," Donna said. And she resolutely resumed her book.

It was strange how she could sense him shifting his weight restlessly before he finally moved back around the couch. Donna peeked at him from the corner of her eye as he unbuttoned his jacket and shrugged it off, throwing it over the back of the couch before joining her on it, toeing off his shoes. He took up the other two thirds of the couch by leaning on the end and propping his feet up against her legs. He then reached into the pockets of his discarded jacket and pulled out his glasses, followed by a leather bound book that couldn't have possibly fit inside a pocket of a normal suit jacket.

Donna smirked as he balanced his glasses on his crooked nose and opened his book. The poor man hated being alone, so rather than get into an argument about it and act as if he'd go off without her, like he used to threaten to do even though it never worked, he'd rather save the argument so he wouldn't be kicked out of the room. He'd rather spend time with her doing whatever it was she was doing. The thought made her sigh and laugh softly to herself.

"Oi," he said, nudging her with his feet. "What's so funny?"

"You didn't put up as much of a fight as you normally would," Donna said, smugly. "You're more tired than you were letting on."

His brows furrowed slightly and he opened his mouth as if to protest before shutting it again, returning her smile instead. "I'm beginning to think you know me too well, Donna Noble," he said.

"Whatever will you do without all your mystery then, hmm?" she said. She glanced at the book in his hands and noticed it didn't have a title. "What'cha reading then?"

"Chetulikan prose from the 167th century, written in a nonlinear format using a parameter that's similar to iambic on Earth, but not quite, you see, because it has six different levels of-" he glanced up as Donna yawned. "Am I boring you?"

"Nooo," Donna denied, and yawned again.

"You have no appreciation for 167th century literature," he said defensively, clutching the book to his chest like she insulted it.

"Hard to build an appreciation for something if I've never heard of it before," Donna said.

"Want me to read it to you?" the Doctor asked eagerly.

Donna looked over at him. His hopeful grin warmed her in a pleasant way. He loved sharing experiences, this man. It seemed to be what he lived for. And if he couldn't cart his tired companion off across space and time at the moment, how could she deny him sharing the little things like this? Especially when she thought it was that sharing of experiences, of time and space, of the little things, that kept this man going.

"Sure, Spaceman," Donna said, closing her book. She set it aside and tucked further into her side of the couch, turning to look at him when she was ready.

He didn't translate the book into English, and that was fine, because she knew the meaning of the poetry would be lost in translation. It really was lovely even if she didn't understand a word. He had a way of conveying feeling into his voice as he read it, and Donna felt wonder, longing, and peace as the words formed, a symphony of long vowels and soft consonants. She closed her eyes and let her mind sink into the prose and thought she could stay like that for hours. 

"Donna."

Donna opened her eyes. Halcyon was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, looking between her and the Doctor. She was almost leaning forward into the couch, against Donna's folded knees. Was it the lighting in the library, or did Halcyon look pale-?

"Be sure to concentrate on him now, okay? We know he's the key to your memory loss," Halcyon said, "Just get through this, Donna. You're doing wonderful, so much better than we thought you would. You really have an amazing and unique mind. I'm so happy you trusted me enough to stay here with you, if only for a little while. That means a lot to me." Donna watched as she breathed in carefully through her nose and exhaled slowly through her mouth.

"You all right?" Donna asked.

Halcyon smiled softly. "I'll be fine. I'll be there when you wake up. Just relax, Donna. Let the memories and dreams come."

Donna nodded and her heavy eyes drooped back closed as she listened to the Doctor read. She remembered then all the times they sat together, the two of them, in the quiet moments between adventures. Eating together, talking together, reading together, doing chores. It was comforting, she thought, to have a person in your life to share with. She smiled, and let herself drift off to the sound of his voice, content and happy in a way she'd never been before in her life.

* * *

"Gorgeous day!"

"Suppose it is," Donna said, following him out of the TARDIS.

Lamar went up on his toes and did an odd little half spin back in Donna's direction. "Whoa!" he said, gaping at her.

"What?" Donna asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"What a dress, Donna!" Lamar said, coming back towards her and giving her a low whistle. "C'mon, give us a turn," he said, with a whirl of his finger.

"Get off, you," Donna said, rolling her eyes. She looked down at her dress. Not her favorite cut, but she loved the rich chocolate color, the embroidery, and the long strand of pearls. And her legs looked amazing, didn't they?

"What about you? What do you call that get-up?" Donna said with a grin.

Lamar straightened his tie and ran a finger along the rim of his homburg. "I call it style, Miss Noble," he said with a cheeky half-smile. "American style. Gatsby has nothing on me." He looked around. "Where are we anyway? 1920s? 'Course we are, I can smell lemonade. And look at those vehicles-"

"Lamar-" Donna started, suddenly wary. Like she was forgetting something important.

"What we doing here, Donna? What's significant about this time and that dress and all?"

"Lamar, I think I'm-"

"Do you smell ginger?" Lamar asked, wrinkling his nose at the sky.

"Ginger?!" Donna asked, looking around. And just like that she was standing in a kitchen staring at her wild-eyed spaceman. He was pale, unfocused, and making jazz hands at her for some reason.

Well, it was the 1920s.

Donna found herself grabbing him by the lapels of his brown pinstriped jacket and pulling him towards her, moving her hands to frame his face when he was close enough and leaning in to plant her lips on his.

_The things I do to save your life, you barmy Martian!_

She felt a ripple of surprise, shock, and a strange kind of pleasure ripple from his mind into hers and Donna immediately let go of him, backing away as quickly as she could until she hit the counter behind her. She watched as he exhaled a nasty cloud of vapors, his body completely rigid.

"What a way to heal a man," Lamar said from the other side of the room, leaning against the counter with his hip, tossing an apple in the air and catching it. Donna glared at him. He bit into the fruit and shrugged at her.

"I really must do that more often," the Doctor said.

Donna swallowed nervously as she looked at him. For once words were failing her.

"I-I mean the...the detox," he stuttered, practically vibrating from all the energy in his body, while poor Donna was standing there doing everything she could to stay upright, certain her knees were going to collapse if she even attempted to move.

 _I bet you did Mister Or-Time-Lords!_ Donna thought. But didn't say it because her tongue was still all tied in knots. She continued to stand there as others started buzzing around him, trying to make sense of what they witnessed.

_What just happened-?!_

"Donna, come on!" Donna snapped out her thoughts to see the Doctor looking at her anxiously, leaning from the doorway, ginger beer still dripping from his hair.

Donna ran after him.

He grabbed her hand as they rounded the corner of the skyway, but immediately stopped and did a one eighty turn when more of the robots started coming down that end of the corridor as well.

"Now what?!" Donna shouted at him. "We've got angry vigilante mall cops chasing us from all directions! Why did you have to lick every bloody thing you can't identify by sight?! Or at least carry some kind of legal tender so that when you do lick the most expensive, dissolvable jewel in seven sectors-"

"Donna, just trust me, all right?" the Doctor suddenly shouted, turning and grabbing her by the shoulders. Donna had only a moment to take in the utter mania of his face before he pulled her body flush against his, wrapping one arm firmly around her after he did. She squawked indignantly into his chest as he sonicked the floor below them and they fell into the shaft underneath. Then he sonicked the shaft closed again.

Donna wasn't sure how. He didn't have any room to move his arm back up, or his hand for that matter. Maybe his fingers. Maybe he simply turned the sonic screwdriver around in his hand using those ridiculous fingers and pointed it up.

"What did I tell you about hands, Doctor?!" Donna demanded, though it came out a bit muffled since she was squished between the wall of the shaft and the blue fabric of his suit.

"Situational circumstances, Donna-" the Doctor said, craning his face away to look up. Donna heard the whirling of the robot mall cops and they swiveled about the corridors above them, looking for the jewel-eating criminals.

"Is it just me or do these 'situational circumstances' seem to be happening more often than not?" Donna asked, moving her face to the side so her nose wasn't pressed against him anymore.

Not that he smelled unpleasant or anything. He actually smelled good, really wonderful in fact, just like a man should, only with a spicy tone that Donna could only describe as alien since it was unlike any smell a human man would make. But it really wasn't unpleasant and Donna did not want to think about how wonderful the Doctor smelled when her breasts were pressed up against him and one of his knees had come up between her legs when they fell and Donna was practically sitting on his thigh.

No, she really did not.

"I don't know what you mean," the Doctor said, and Donna noted how his voice was just a bit higher than it was before.

"Like hell you don't," Donna said. "What about yesterday when I had to cling to you for dear life while you piloted that jet pack through the ceiling?!"

"The building was collapsing-!"

"Give a girl some warning before you snatch her around the waist, Sunshine! Or give her her own jetpack! Or the day before yesterday when you pinned me in that alley when that angry mob was chasing us-!"

"They had pitchforks, genuine torches and pitchforks, and my duster blended us both into the building if you recall-!"

"Or last week when you practically lifted me over your shoulder from behind-!"

"You were about to walk into Tyfhid-5 quicksand, Donna-!"

"'Donna! Watch your step, you're about to walk into Tyfhid-5 quicksand! Quickest sand this side of the Yukir galaxy, you'll be burning up in the core of the planet before you could even blink!'" Donna shouted, mimicking his character harshly. "See?! Not hard at all to give a verbal warning and no hands involved!"

The Doctor looked down at her, glaring. Donna watched the temper swirl around his dark, too deep, too alien eyes and swallowed reflexively. Their faces were very close-

"You were never this self-conscious around me before," he said, his voice much deeper than it was a moment ago when they were arguing.

"I'm not self-conscious, you prawn," Donna argued, wishing she didn't sound quite so breathless.

"No really. We've been in each other's personal space during emergencies loads of times when you first started traveling with me, and you didn't start reacting this way until-" He stopped. He didn't have to say anything for Donna to know what he was thinking.

 _Until I snogged you to save your life in Lady Eddison's kitchen,_ Donna thought. She moved her face back so her cheek was against his chest again. She could hear his twin heartbeats, thumping much faster than a human heart rate. Though maybe not now, in comparison to hers.

Donna closed her eyes. The last thing she wanted was for her best-friend in the whole universe to know she was more _aware_ of him than she used to be. And she was doing a bollocks job of hiding it.

She was reading too much into this. Close calls sometimes meant close...situations. And it wasn't like they together no matter what the rest of the universe assumed. So what if he wanted to take her to the biggest shopping center in the universe, or the loveliest beaches with clouds that looked like candy floss, or that he kept talking about treating her to the a famous spa planet made entirely of gemstones? Or that he was suddenly interested in studying alien courting rituals? Because there wasn't anything romantic about watching Zyglots spray each other down with brilliant firework displays. Or watching the male bird people of planet 649642GF build decorative huts out of rubbish and preen in front of them for the females-

"Hullo down there!"

Donna and the Doctor looked up.

"Lamar?" Donna asked, surprised. "What are you doing up there-?!"

"Oh good, help has come at last!" the Doctor said cheerily. "You won't have to put up with this long streak of nothing much longer, Miss Noble, don't you worry."

"Never mind the sarcasm, Timeboy," Donna said. "Lamar, I don't get it, did you rescue us before-?"

"No," Lamar said, pressing a few buttons on a remote, which started raising the floor beneath them. "I reckon you just forgot who actually rescued you from this situation so I get to fill in. Can't say I blame you for not remembering. You look a bit...preoccupied," he finished with a smirk.

Donna rolled her eyes. "Don't you start," she said.

"Why not?" Lamar said, helping them both up and out of the shaft.

"Because," Donna started to say to him as the Doctor sprang back into action shouting "Allon-sy!" and heading off ahead of her in the direction of the TARDIS. She couldn't help but think he couldn't wait to get some distance between them. "Because," she started again, "he's in love with someone else."

"Really?" Lamar asked, genuinely surprised, "Who?"

"Her, silly," Donna said. She pointed at the blonde woman on the other side of the street they were standing in. The Doctor was running towards her and Donna was elated, but not for herself.

She was heartbroken, but it felt like she had been heartbroken for years, before she even had a chance to give her heart away.

It was cold and the street was dark. Donna shivered, looking around at the debris, broken glass, abandoned cars, and tire skid marks. She could smell the burnt metal and rubber in the air. The nearby buildings were broken, abandoned.

"How long are they going to be running like that?"

Donna turned towards Lamar. He was looking out at the two figures that seemed to run on and on without end. His hands were in the pockets of his white suit and he was leaning down slightly towards her, like they were old friends about to share inside jokes.

"I don't know," Donna said. She looked him up and down. "Do you have a hot date or something?"

"Just you," Lamar said smoothly, giving her a wink.

"What would your wife say?" Donna playfully scolded, nudging him with her shoulder.

"She'd probably be angry that we went off without including her, to tell you the truth," Lamar said. 

Donna decided to let that one go and turned back towards the running couple. "This is getting kind of cheesy. Like one of those dumb movie sequences with the swelling music and slow motion action shots."

Lamar laughed. "Maybe you just can't remember what happens next, Donna."

"Maybe I don't want to remember," Donna said. But she knew that wasn't true. She did want to remember, because if this was the moment that her Spaceman was reunited with the one he loved, then she wanted him to have that. Truly, she did, because she was a grown woman and she wasn't petty, not after everything she'd been through to get where she was, to be the person she was.

She could grieve for herself and be happy for him, couldn't she? Wasn't she?

Then why did this memory feel so wrong?

Why did everything feel wrong? Like she was missing something important?

How she suddenly felt so angry at the Doctor, like he had taken something precious from her.

Wasn't that wrong?

"No, don't, please..." Donna whispered, the words echoing in her mind, as she stared at the Doctor's back.

Lamar inhaled sharply. Donna startled when she felt his hand grip her shoulder. She turned to look at Lamar's deep blue eyes and watched the color drain out of her friend's face.

"Lamar," Donna said, "I think I will remember what happened at the end."

"Yeah, it would seem," Lamar said, wheezing.

"What's wrong with you?" Donna demanded, leaning over him, trying to lift him back to his feet as his legs started to collapse.

"The Time Lord consciousness is a little overwhelming that's all," Lamar said, clinging to Donna as he righted himself. "Sometimes the memories are attached to strong emotions and physical reactions and they drain a bit more regenerative energy than I was prepared for. Nothing I can't handle-"

"Yeah, you look like you're handling it," Donna said, making no effort to hide the sarcastic bite of her words from him. "Lamar, I think we better stop, I didn't realize this whole process would make the three of you so ill-" Donna brought her hands up to her temples and rubbed at them, going more on instinct on what she needed to do to stop the process.

"Donna, stop," Lamar said, gently pulling her hands down from her head and clasping them firmly. "You said you'd let us do this. Please. It won't be long now."

"I'm sorry, I was wrong, I shouldn't have let your family do this for me. I'm nobody, really I am-"

"No, this is right!" Lamar said, his grip on her hands tightening. "You know it is. You're just afraid to remember why. Well, don't be afraid, Donna Noble! Be brilliant! Be brilliant because you're our friend, _my friend_ , and we _do_ know you! Because you're family now whether you like it or not!" Lamar said.

He doubled over and started coughing like he couldn't breathe. Donna reached for him, wanting to comfort him in his pain, but he was already righting himself. He smiled at her again, his funny crooked smile, waning on his pale face. He reached for her shoulders again and squeezed. "Remember, Donna, remember everything," he said, looking into her eyes.

Donna turned, feeling his hand fall away from her shoulder as she did. Tears were filling her eyes before she could blink them away. She was standing in the console room of her beloved TARDIS and she knew it would be the last time.

The Doctor, her best friend in all creation, was standing in front of her with that sad, broken look in his eyes. She tried to memorize his features, but she knew it was futile, she knew what he was going to do and why and it made her so angry, it made her grieve.

Donna had finally realized what he had been trying to tell her the whole time they traveled together. She was brilliant and special, and the universe really had been waiting for her through all time and space and had lain itself at her feet when she finally arrived. She was Donna Noble the Traveler, Donna Noble the Explorer, and she was meant for this life. She was meant to discover civilizations, planets and stars and galaxies forever with this man, this startling, dazzling, beautiful man that she loved and adored more than everything, everything she was, everything the entire cosmos was, but he was going to take that from her.

She would rather die living like this than live without it, live dying with a ticking bomb in her head, but she knew he wouldn't listen.

"We had the best of times," he said to her softly. 

Donna was shaking. _Don't,_ she thought-

"Goodbye," he whispered, his voice breaking.

Donna begged him not to, pleaded with him. When his eyes closed and he pushed through her mind, Donna desperately tried to fight him until there was nothing left in her to fight. No universes, no galaxies, no time or space, no memory of the man she loved from the very center of her soul. 

Nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

Wilfred never considered himself to be the sharpest tack in the shed. He also had a self-deprecating manner about him, and he still did to an extent, but when he realized his young granddaughter was adopting the same attitude, he tried to catch himself doing it. He did not want Donna to learn that from him.

But it was hard. He had to remind himself that he was good with numbers, and was able to do his own accounting for years without a single audit, even old as he was, his mind was still sharp. He knew the names and faces of all his regulars and neighbors, he could even name their children and their pets if quizzed. There weren't many who could boast the same. And when Wilf closed his eyes, he could map out all the constellations in his mind, just like they were in the sky, just like they were on his favorite hill.

The hill he had sat on every night for a year to reflect on the Doctor in Donna's name.

The Doctor had just told him the nuclear bolt had gone critical. Any button in that machine would flood the glass room he was standing in with five hundred thousand radons.

And then Wilf knew he was the one that came knocking.

"I'm sorry," Wilf said. And he meant it. "Look, just leave me-"

But the Doctor interrupted him. And Wilf watched, helpless and afraid, as the Doctor, the only one in the world who could save Wilf, processed his imminent death with all the bitterness, grief, and anger that anyone faced with death would experience.

Wilfred wanted to tell him to stop. To leave him because Wilf was an old man, and he had lived a long and truly blessed life. But it was in that moment that a thought, a whisper in the back of his mind, came back to him.

_His life could still be saved. So long as you tell him nothing._

And Wilf knew he was the only one in the world that could save the Doctor.

So Wilf looked on at the man who looked so young and was yet so old. The man he would be proud to call a son because he was good, and kind, and astonishing. And Wilf said nothing.

"You were always this, waiting for me all this time! Not remotely important! But me?! I could do so much more-" the Doctor shouted, his hands in his hair.

And still, Wilf said nothing. He understood the place the Doctor was in because he was in the same place. No one really looks at the end of their life in serenity - if anything, Wilf thought it would hard to leave the ones that love him living without him. It was hard for Eileen, dear blessed Eileen, the mother of his children, to leave her grieving husband. Wilf thought of his wife on their wedding day, in her modest white dress and veil. He thought about how his heart leapt so high at the sight of her that surely the whole church could see it in his eyes. He thought of her auburn hair curling around her face as he lifted the veil to look at her, and how she smiled, oh how she smiled.

Later that evening, when they were alone and everyone had gone, she had let Wilf undo all those curls one by one until her brilliant red hair was tumbling about her shoulders. She was so beautiful.

"I could do so much more!" the Doctor said, tears in his eyes. But then his dark eyes grew distant and pained. "But I couldn't save her, I couldn't-" He choked before he could finish the sentence. Wilfred felt his heart sink lower.

He still said nothing, but he wanted to, because it was dreadfully sad to fight the instinct to reach out to someone, vocally, emotionally, when it was the last person he'd ever see. Wilf just wanted someone to hold him in their thoughts, the same anyone would want. But apart from himself, he wanted to tell the Doctor it would be all right for the Doctor's sake. Even if he wouldn't believe it, Wilf wanted him to be comforted.

_"Sometimes I didn't even like humans. Thought I was superior to everything and everyone."_

_Oh, Donna,_ Wilf thought, and just that one thought made him feel so broken. He had no idea what happened to her. But he knew of only one man that loved her enough to tear through the universe and save her. And Wilf was going to save his life.

Wilf was going to save the Doctor's life by saying nothing. Because if the Doctor tried to save him, and then regenerated into someone that didn't care enough to save his granddaughter...then what was the point?

He slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the cool metal of his mobile inside it.

_"I added a special pulse to your mobile to help us locate Donna's phone."_

Wilf was momentarily startled when the Doctor violently shoved at the items on a desk across the room, papers and pens flying across to the floor. Wilf watched the rage and grief play across his friend's features before they settled into heartbreaking sadness. "Live too long..." the Doctor murmured.

And still Wilf said nothing. Even though everything human in him wanted the comfort of another soul next to him in those final few moments, he said nothing. Instead, he took advantage of the Doctor's distraction to pull his mobile out and open it.

Donna's name and number was still displayed on the screen, ready to call.

Wilf cried openly and silently in that last moment, thinking about his beautiful girl. The wisps of hair on her tiny head when he first met her on her birthday. Watching her ride a bike on her own the first time, both her front teeth missing as she gave him a wide smile. How proud she was when she announced she was going to University. How she smiled at him with all the love in her heart. His brilliant, sassy, kind Donna, who shouted at the world to make it a better place. His granddaughter who was destined to save the universe.

He would give anything to see her one last time, but at the same time, he could see her. Sitting on their hill, holding his hand, gazing at the sky, the stars reflecting in her brilliant blue-green eyes. His Donna, who he loved, who deserved to be loved. Donna who was worth everything.

"Goodbye, sweetheart," Wilf said softy, tears rolling down his cheeks, looking at Donna's name.

And he hit the call button.

* * *

Emotions flew at her. Overwhelming, extraordinary senses of wonder, devastation, horror, happiness, contentment. But there was a storm inside her, swirling around her center, and Donna watched it warily but without fear because she knew what it was. Aching loss. Sickness. So much rage. 

God help her, if she ever saw that idiot Spaceman again, she was going to slap him so hard he'd be dealing with _his own_ pain and memory loss-

The missing memories fell and clicked, pieces shifted into place. Donna was filled with an awareness that was strange in the patterns but familiar in the tones. She suddenly remembered things she didn't less than a second ago - it all rushed into her from her subconscious, filling the new neurological patterns in her mind, reasserting a sense of self she thought she lost. The missing years came back to her and she was dismayed to realize she lost a lot more than _two measly years_ to adventure and time travel. And in those new patterns was a new, alien sense of being, reminding her that she wasn't just human anymore.

Somehow that made her happy, yet so very, very sad, like she lost something.

If she concentrated, she could attune herself to these new senses. Tune into the movement of the planet she was on, tune to the sense of time as it flowed by, and suddenly she knew just how long she had been laying there-

Donna opened her eyes.

"Three weeks, four days, sixteen hours-!" Donna sputtered.

"Yes, sorry about that, it took a lot longer than I thought to sort out that brain of yours. It's still very human, I had to improvise on what I know," said a female voice to her right. "I was hoping to get it done a week earlier. Our window to get you through the Time Lock is narrowing by the hour at this point-"

Donna turned her head and blinked at the Circle, who was frantically pulling wires from Donna's cranium and chest. "Your vitals are looking good, which is a relief-"

"To hell with _my_ vitals!," Donna gasped, reaching to grab the other woman so she could haul herself up. "Lamar, Halcyon, Katja! They...they-" It was difficult to breathe. She was overwhelmed between her anger over what the Doctor did to her and the how she felt over the price of being saved. Her grief momentarily eclipsed her anger. Donna swung her legs over the chair, and regretted it when her vision swirled. She'd used them. She'd used them and they were gone and nothing was going to take away that guilt.

She held a hand up to her mouth and sobbed. The Circle tried rubbing her back reassuringly, but then she was gone. Donna kept crying. "Those idiots, those stupid idiots, I told them to stop-" Donna said, softly.

There was a groan. Donna turned to see Lamar lying in a chair next to hers, his face pale and drawn. The Circle was pulling wires and cables from his body in the same frantic movements, whispering to him in hurried Gallifreyan, stopping to touch his face hesitantly as Lamar wearily opened his eyes.

"Lamar?!" Donna said. She jumped up as Lamar turned and blinked at her, before closing his eyes again. "Lamar!" Donna ran around her medical chair to his, but she was uncoordinated, and almost fell on top of him when she reached him.

He hugged her back, but there was no strength behind it.

"What's this, Donna?" he asked as Donna pulled away.

"I thought you were dead, Dumbo!" Donna shouted. She tried smacking his shoulder, but there was no strength behind that either.

"Not dead," Lamar said, closing his eyes. "Just tired. You take a lot out of a man, Miss Noble, but don't worry, you're worth everything."

The Circle rolled her eyes.

"Are they awake?!"

Katja came running into the room, sonic screwdriver in one hand, and something that looked a lot like a gun in the other. He was followed closely by Halcyon.

"What's happened?!" the Circle demanded. "Why did you tell me to wake them?! It's too soon-"

"The extrapolator shielding went down, we have precious little time before the TARDIS is crawling with Daleks. She'll hide us for as long as she can, but dimensional integrity will be the first to go once they figure out Time Lords are running around in here-" Halcyon said, and she moved quickly to the medical control panel. She started pulling out more of the gun-looking things, like they were perfectly normal objects one would find in a medical panel.

"Donna," Katja said and Donna looked up at him. His light brown hair was singed, and he smelled vaguely of electrical burns. "Donna. Are you all right?"

No one would blame her if she hit him, she thought. No one would because they were supposed to be oh-so-smart, but they ask the stupidest questions. But she couldn't hit him because the strength was only just returning to her muscles and she felt like it was an accomplishment just to rise up and meet him when he reached her side.

Donna wrapped her arms around Katja and shuddered. "When I saw you in my memories, when you disappeared, I thought...I thought...I shouldn't have let you help me, I-"

"No, no," Halcyon said. She walked over, rubbed Donna's back. "We just couldn't help you anymore. No more regenerative energy in our cells. But we're okay, see? Healthy as all get out."

"Come on, Old Man, we need to move," Katja said. He wrapped an arm around his brother's waist and helped Lamar get to his feet. Lamar swayed a moment, almost sitting down again.

"It's like regeneration sickness," Lamar said hoarsely, "Only without the regeneration."

"It's brutal. Hal and I had to go through it too," Katja said, "But we have to move. They've found us and the TARDIS can only hide us for so long-"

"Come along, Donna Noble," Halcyon said. She held out a gun, but Donna shook her head.

"I would rather one of those sonic pens," Donna said.

"Oh. Here," Halcyon said, reaching into her pocket and removing her sonic screwdriver. "Take mine."

"Where are we going?" Donna asked, gripping the sonic close to her chest.

"We need to get you to the council room, closer to the heart of the TARDIS. The Baron left a program that should jettison you through the vortex back to Sol III. As long as the Daleks don't get to us first," Halcyon said, smiling, "But it's a sound plan, yes? What can go wrong?"

"No, don't say that, don't," Donna said.

Katja had to support Lamar for several steps out into the corridor before Lamar shrugged his brother off and was able to balance himself. Donna was still having issues with walking in a straight line. But her heart and lungs seemed to be working, and her brain wasn't burning like it was about to explode, so whatever the Circle triggered must have worked-

Donna stopped suddenly, and leaned against the wall. She was violently coughing. Golden swirls of dust came out of her lungs, coalescing in front of her eyes.

"What...what the hell..." Donna said as the gold shimmered in front of her face and seemed to be absorbed back into her skin.

"Well, if the Daleks didn't know we were here before-"

"Sorry, is my involuntary reflex bothering you?" Donna snapped.

"It's not her fault. I had to wake her before her body could acclimate to the excess," the Circle said, moving to scan Donna with her pen. "You all right? Can you keep running?"

Donna nodded once, setting her jaw.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm a bit tense," Halcyon said, "I can't forget we're running out of time."

She literally meant Time itself was running out, Donna knew. The Time Lock was starting.

She could see the end of their timelines shimmering not too far ahead, not quite converged, but definitely not infinite in possibilities. The way it should be for Time Lords, defenders of all time and space. And the parts of her that were still so very, very human, - the side of her Donna was grateful to still have because, in her opinion, it made her better - the instinctual twisting in her gut, the desire to save those that would save her, that made scenario after impossible scenario fire off in her mind. She felt a fierce affection for all of them, and it was awful, because she knew if even one of them somehow evaded the Time Lock, the resulting paradox would put the universe at risk.

And she knew that was wrong. 

And she hated it.

It was in that moment, one of those final, precious moments, that two Daleks sped down the TARDIS corridor faster than Donna had ever seen two Daleks go, and shoot at the Time Lords. Halcyon turned to fire back but it was too late.

Lamar, who had been hovering closely to Donna and the Circle, immediately moved in front of them. Donna watched, horrified, as the laser shot through his chest, his image momentarily irradiated. She could see through his body, like an x-ray image, into his pericardial cavity and his frantically beating hearts. He hit the ground in front of them with a sickening crunch.

"No!" the Circle screamed. Donna looked over at her as she, face full of fury, reached down to pull Lamar's sonic screwdriver from his hand, and jumped back up, racing towards the two Daleks.

"All Time Lords will report to sorting stations for surrender-" one Dalek started to instruct.

"Sort this out," the Circle said.

With her pen in one hand and Lamar's screwdriver in the other, the Circle pressed both against the shielding surrounding each Dalek, and used her own body as a conduit. Electricity flashed between the two sonic tools and through the Circle. It filled the whole room with blinding light as it exploded, and Donna, Katja, and Halcyon were thrown back down the corridor.

Donna hit the ground hard, and the wind rushed out of her lungs. She coughed furiously. More golden light shimmered in the air as she scrambled up to her knees to see the Circle crawling back towards her husband.

"Lamar-" Donna said, voice breaking. She pushed herself up, half ran to where he was laying. So still-

The Circle looked up at her. Donna felt a shadow of her grief in that moment, uncontrolled as the shields normally around the older woman's mind faltered. Then Donna noticed the same golden light trickling under the Circle's skin.

"He's gone," the Circle whispered.

"No, no, no this isn't right-!" Donna said, openly crying, reaching them and falling forward to touch Lamar's temple, running her hand along his hair.

So still. So empty.

"Donna, come on," Katja said, gently lifting her away by the hand. "We have to keep running."

"What are you going to do?" Halcyon asked the Circle.

Donna thought how they both sounded like soldiers. Moving forward after a comrade in arms fell. But from the way Katja's hand was shaking on her shoulder, Donna knew they weren't okay. They were soldiers and they were people. They were losing what was left of her family.

"I'm going to go out with a bang," the Circle said, and it almost sounded glib. Light crawled under her skin. "The Daleks won't be using this Time Ship to escape the Time Lock. I'll hold off for a few minutes, so get Donna Noble out of here. Donna, it's been an honor."

"I don't understand-" Donna said.

"She's going to use her regeneration as a bomb," Katja said to Donna as he tried to move her away.

But Donna couldn't leave people behind. "Let go of me," she demanded, but Katja refused. Donna could hear the whir of more Daleks on the other end of the corridor. She didn't know if it was fear, or Katja's stubborn pull, that caused them both to round the corner, but when the Circle and Lamar were out of sight, Donna finally tugged free. She tried to turn back around the corner only to find the corridor had changed.

"No! I don't care if you need to change time and space to save me, I'm not leaving them! We don't leave people behind!" Donna shouted at the ceiling, "We don't LEAVE PEOPLE!" She stomped at the floor.

The strange TARDIS hummed, but did nothing.

"You're all in this together," Donna shouted, "Gallifreyans and their bloody martyr complexes. Just like him! All that nonlinear horseshit makes you lot think-" 

"Donna!"

Donna looked up. Katja and Halcyon were staring at her wide-eyed. Towards the end of the corridor was an archway into what appeared to be the council room. It was surprisingly free of Daleks, but if this TARDIS was half as clever as the Old Girl, Donna knew the Daleks were materializing in all sorts of places they probably didn't want to be in.

"Getting a little personal, aren't you, Donna?"

"What's so wrong with getting personal?!" Donna demanded. "Maybe I am being _personal._ What's wrong with that?! Aren't all our actions based off of what we know?! Isn't that _personal?!_ "

Donna stopped, inhaling sharply. She could remember his fingers on her temples and he drew closer to her, and how horrified she was. She knew what was happening, what he was going to do, and she didn't want that. Who would? Who would want to spend all that time, learning more about the best and worst sides of yourself, growing into a better person, and have that all taken away? It would be like dying. And she would rather die knowing.

"Right," Halcyon said, interrupting her thoughts. "We should-we should check on the extrapolator shielding and the vortex teleportation program to send you back to Earth." She pointed at the council with her gun hand. Donna didn't move. Halcyon exhaled loudly then turned to go inside.

Donna pursed her lips together as she followed Katja into the council. She felt the change immediately.

"Shields are still up here?"

"Yeah," Halcyon said as she hit levers and read the monitors.

Donna remembered enough about how to fly a TARDIS to know that Halcyon was checking preprogrammed flight plans, and maybe a few additional things, but she also knew enough about reading people to know that Halcyon wasn't happy with what she found.

Donna looped around the council, watching them, as they troubleshot the apparent problem.

"Extrapolator shield down to minimum function in the council room only. Dalek invasion in any subset loop they can find through the chameleon arc-"

"TARDIS readout shows maximum output into single extrapolator field and time-space dimension-"

"We can't use the automatic vortex feed, we'll have to do it manually-"

"That would interfere with the dimensional integrity of the field-"

"Oi, I may not remember everything I did when the metacrisis happened, but I sure as hell can tell when two aliens are barmy over a space problem," Donna said, then her brows furrowed, "But I suppose I'm the alien on Gallifrey-"

Halcyon turned her puzzled look from the monitor to Donna, and Donna watched as her face slowly brightened.

"Donna Noble, that's brilliant!" Halcyon said, snapping her fingers.

"Positively sure that anyone can figure out they're the actual alien on an alien planet surrounded by aliens-" Donna started.

"What's that then?" Katja said at the same time.

"Gallifrey! Gallifrey! And Earth! Right before the Time Lock goes up I saw it, I told you, remember?!" Halcyon said, and she started madly whirring levers about.

Katja smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "The shorter distance in space will-"

"I _know-!_ " Halcyon said.

"What's going on?!" Donna demanded. "Shorter distance in space?!"

"Gallifrey will be in the Sol System falling into Earth's orbit for approximately two to three Earth minutes-" Halcyon said.

 _"WHAT?!"_ Donna shouted.

"We'll have to go outside and use a manual vortex manipulator. I think I've got one filed away somewhere," Katja said. He pulled a panel open in the wall and started throwing random things around the council room. A violin, a bundle of dried flowers, a few wired contraptions Donna didn't recognize-

"We can't go outside, the extrapolator shield doesn't extend out there."

Katja turned to Donna. "Donna, didn't you figure out a way to disable the Dalek weaponry on the Crucible? I remember it in your memories."

"Oh, right," Halcyon said.

"I don't have the Doc-" Donna swallowed, and cringed as she tried to say his name, "the Doctor's memories anymore. I couldn't tell you how I did it."

"Yes, but you _remember_ , right?! What was it? I remember it was something I would _never_ have thought of because it seemed completely bonkers-"

"Oi, watch yourself, alien," Donna said. She rubbed at her temple, willing the memory to come. "Something about a K-filter wavelength matrix."

"Macrotransmitted, of course! That _was_ brilliant! Brilliant Donna Noble!" Halcyon said.

"I can program a macrotransmitter to emit a K-filter matrix and run it to the surface. Give me a minute head start to get it set-up!" Katja said. He pulled out from the council what looked to Donna like a one of those handheld transmitter beacons she'd seen on science NASA programming.

"Oi!" Halcyon said, running up and tugging his sleeve before Katja could run up to the transporter disc and disappear. "There's a whole Dalek army up on the surface! We might not-"

"No, we might not," Katja said, face serious.

Halcyon looked down, not letting go of his sleeve. Donna walked closer to them. She felt that awful feeling in her throat again, like she couldn't swallow. She reached forward and stroked his other arm. "You don't have to do this, Katja," Donna said. "I really wish you wouldn't. I wish-"

"I know you do," Katja said. He smiled at Donna, then he turned and embraced his sister. Halcyon clutched at her brother's shoulders and Donna knew that for a moment they weren't soldiers fighting the worst war in the history of the universe, but a brother and a sister grieving for a life, a family, a planet and history they had lost.

Katja pulled away from Halcyon, shoved the vortex manipulator into her hand, and hopped up on the transportation disc. He took out his sonic screwdriver and in a flash he was gone.

_Donna stared, bemused, as her best friend stepped into the transportation tube, and looked over at her. His eyes were large, grave, and determined, wearing out the regret, the anxious fear. In a flash he was gone. And Donna fisted her hands in her hair and she cried and she cried-_

Donna heard Halcyon breathing. Deep, soulful breaths she would have to use every muscle in her core to make. Donna looked at her. Her eyes were nearly closed and she breathed out and in three times, each breathe slow and purposeful. Then she opened her eyes and looked at Donna.

"Time Lord meditation technique," Halcyon explained as she moved towards Donna and started wrapping the vortex manipulator around her wrist. "You'll have to learn some I suspect. Time Lord minds, they can be tricky. Shoot from one thought to another like lasers and you wouldn't want to lose control," Halcyon explained. Then she looked into Donna's eyes, thoughtful. "But you're half-human. Your mind is probably still has some of that beautiful chaos humans evolved with. Maybe...maybe you'll be all right. In fact, you will be. I know that much," Halcyon said.

Donna let her strap the vortex manipulator, let her ramble, because she was starting to suspect that was how her people coped when faced with a situation that was overwhelming. But she was never a woman to stay silent for long. "Halcyon-"

"I know you want to apologize, Donna. Don't. Don't you even dare," Halcyon said, pointing her finger. "This whole thing was my idea. It was my idea to save the Most Important Woman in the Universe. If anything, it was my fault."

"It's not your fault, Halcyon," Donna said. "And I won't say sorry because I blame myself or I pity you. I'm going to say sorry because you lost your family and your home. And I feel for you, dear. From the bottom of my heart, I feel for you," Donna said, and she leaned forward and hugged her.

Halcyon was shaking, but she embraced Donna easily. Donna rubbed her back, knowing there wasn't a lot she could do to soothe her, but she could do a little.

Sooner than Donna expected Halcyon was pulling away and jumping onto the transportation disc. "I think we've given my brother enough time to set up that macrotransmitter. Shall we? Setting 56TQ," Halcyon said.

And Donna remembered that she had the sonic screwdriver. She took it out of her pocket, pointed it at the disc, and turned it on. Halcyon disappeared in a flash.

Donna stood there for less than a second and took it the silent stillness of a strange TARDIS. She noticed for the first time the rotor wasn't moving. It was eerie.

She took a moment to center the chaos in her heart.

Shaking off the ghosts, Donna stepped on the transportation disc and sonicked.

Donna flashed back onto the red desert sands on the surface of Gallifrey. Donna gasped at the beauty, the wonder of standing on the one planet she thought she'd never see. It truly was a majestic planet, even burning, even with the skies filled with smoke and those terrifying Dalek saucers, and-

"Shit!" Donna exclaimed. The twin suns were no longer in the sky. Instead, a familiar blue-green marble of a planet filled the horizon.

"I know," Halcyon said. Donna looked over her shoulder at the other woman. She was scribbling something into a pad, which is she turned and handed to Donna when she was done. "That shouldn't be there, right?! Well, in another minute it won't be, Gallifrey will be back where it belongs and all Sol III will suffer is a handful of natural disasters, nothing you can't handle. I sent a message by the way, just in case-"

"Just in case of what?" Donna asked, pocketing the pad. It looked suspiciously like the Doctor's bloody daft psychic paper that told the whole universe she was married to him-

"Oh you know. These things aren't always reliable," Halcyon said, flicking towards the vortex manipulator on Donna's wrist. "But it's our best shot. Luckily Katja's macrotransmitter seems to be working, since the Dalek saucers can't seem to fire over this area. They'll catch on quick though. So we better program this. Early 21st century, right? Right. 2010-"

"Halcyon," Donna repeated, reaching forward and grabbing the shorter woman by the shoulders. She felt tears prick the back of her eyes. Donna felt drained, anxious, and she couldn't help the guilt, the anger that this had happened to a civilization that was supposed to be around forever, protecting time and space from paradox and destruction.

Donna never had an issue with expressing her thoughts through words. But in the end she could only say one thing.

"Thank you, Halcyon," Donna said, "For everything."

Halcyon smiled at her. Donna's heart clenched when she saw how bright the shorter woman's eyes were, and the tears falling down her face. She had lost her family today. Even if she knew it was coming, it could never have prepared her completely. Donna leaned forward to embrace her one more time, holding her tight.

"Thank you for being magnificent, Donna Noble," Halcyon whispered into her ear. And then Donna was pushed back, and Halcyon pressed the button on the manipulator before another word was said.

* * *

Death was not glamorous. It was stark, unforgiving. The Doctor had known death through his travels. But because the universe was cruel, he was a mortal man who still could not die completely, and he would always know death, would always know people who would love him and die for him, even if it broke his hearts and he'd have to dwell in the darkest corners of his soul whenever he was faced with death and destruction.

The Doctor was lying on the floor, where he had fallen after uselessly pounding on the glass his friend Wilfred Mott was trapped behind, begging him to stop.

"I'm not worth it!" the Doctor had screamed, "I'm pathetic, and selfish, but I'm _not_ like them, I'm _not!_ "

And he sobbed, falling to his knees, and then to the floor, as Wilf slumped to the ground. The rational part of the Doctor knew that Wilf had died near instantly. A fragile human body couldn't withstand that level of radiation and remain conscious in that kind of pain for very long. So the Doctor forced himself to watch as the radiation flooded and drained from the chamber. Wilf's body was so horrifyingly burned and melted, it was unrecognizable.

"Why would you do this?" the Doctor asked him, staring at the ceiling. "Why? You deserved so much more. I told you not to. I _told_ you..."

It had been decades since he had cried that much. In one day he had lost Donna Noble, lost his people all over again, lost the Master, and another dear friend, Wilfred Mott, had died in his name. And even before that day his emotions were still scraped raw, so much that he couldn't stand the company of another person on the TARDIS, because the guilt and grief were unpalatable. So he lied there on the floor, the tears running down his cheeks into his ears, soaking into his hair. And he wished desperately and selfishly that Wilf didn't steal his death from him. His chance at oblivion.

The Doctor felt the floor vibrate. Someone was walking on that floor, towards that room. His head came up as several officials entered the room, followed by a meek Joshua Naismith.

"Katherine Morgan, Unified Intelligence Taskforce," a short, stern looking woman in a red beret said to him as he stood up from the ground. She flashed her badge and fixed him with a strict glare. "All associates of Joshua Naismith are being taken in for questioning-"

"Oh, I'm no associate of _his,"_ the Doctor said, nodding his head towards Naismith, glaring.

"Just who are you then?" Morgan asked him.

The Doctor took his psychic paper out of his jacket and handed it to here. "I think this explains everything," he said.

Morgan stared, puzzled, at the paper before handing it back to him. "And just how does that explain anything?" she demanded.

The Doctor, confused, looked at her and then looked at the paper.

His breath caught. The world tilted, and then righted under his feet.

"Sir? Sir! Are you going to tell me who you are?! Just what is your involvement with the alien invasion tonight?!" Morgan demanded.

The Doctor whipped his head up sharply. And he shifted his demeanor, went still, calm before the storm.

"I'm called the Doctor," he said, and he saw Morgan's eyes widen, "And I've just had the worst day. And you don't want to get between me and what I have to do after the worst day. So I'm going to explain everything once.

"That man there," the Doctor said, pointing at Naismith, "used alien technology stolen from the Vinvocci for personal gain, putting the entire planet at risk. You'll have a Vinvocci ship contacting you soon to retrieve their technology. This," the Doctor said, and he placed a hand on the glass, "This man was my friend, Wilfred Mott, and he saved the world today. I expect UNIT to take the appropriate measures for his care."

"We'll see to it, Doctor," Morgan said, saluting, "Shall we contact his next of kin?"

The Doctor chose to ignore the salute this time. "No, I'll do that myself," he said. And he knew he had to.

"Doctor," Morgan said, as the Doctor pushed past her, headed for the door, "We would still like to question you-"

"Yes, I know," the Doctor said. But he didn't care.

The Doctor left the room, and then he was running back towards where he parked the TARDIS. The conversation he was about to have with Sylvia Noble was not going to be easy. 

But it would bring him one step closer to a woman he needed. Desperately, completely needed. She once said that he needed someone - someone to stop him and someone to keep him going.

He needed Donna Noble.

His psychic paper wasn't working because it was blocked, except for two words. A message.

_She's out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Donna's speech about being personal is influenced by one of Kathleen Kelly's monologues in the movie _You've Got Mail_ , written by one of my personal heroes, Nora Ephron. May she rest in peace.


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor bolted out of the TARDIS and ran down a street in Chiswick he knew well. He didn't have to run far. Sylvia Noble, pale and furious, was marching from her home and down the street to meet him. Behind her was the man the Doctor recognized as Shaun Temple, worriedly trying to keep pace with Sylvia.

"Where are they?! I heard you coming in that noisy contraption of yours! Where are they?! Where's my daughter?! Where's my father?!" Sylvia demanded.

The Doctor's hearts sank. Donna Noble was not returned to her family. He had no idea where she could be. She could be anywhere in time and space and he didn’t know-

"I asked you a question, Doctor!" Sylvia shouted at him. She was close. The Doctor could see how drawn and worried she had been in every line of her face. He wondered briefly what her face would have been like if he had managed to return her father to her. Would she have smiled? He'd never know.

The Doctor said nothing because he didn’t know how to say what was needed. But he didn't have to because Sylvia Noble was just like her father and her daughter, and somehow read the agony on his bloody and broken face without him having to say a word.

"No," she said brokenly. "No, you're supposed to be this great hero. You're supposed to save people. You _did_ save people, I was watching the sky! I was practically _praying_ to you!" Tears were streaming from her blue eyes, down her face. "Where is my family, you worthless alien?! Where?!"

She pushed him. She shoved both her palms against his chest and shoved him violently away. The Doctor didn't try to fight Sylvia, not even when her hands turned to fists and she shoved at him like she could push the answers out of him. He couldn't even feel it. He didn't feel anything but numb as he looked at Sylvia Noble.

"Sylvia, don't!" Shaun cried, and he reached for the older woman to try and restrain her, but Sylvia screamed and shoved him off. Shaun stumbled two steps backwards and looked helplessly at the Doctor. The Doctor just continued to stare at Sylvia, wishing things were different.

"This is your fault!" Sylvia screamed at him, hitting him again. "I knew this would happen if I let my family around the likes of you! You're careless! And dangerous! Trouble is always around you and it's _always_ your fault!" And then she collapsed against him as the Doctor finally reached up and wrapped his arms Sylvia Noble and hugged her close.

"I'm sorry, Sylvia, I'm so sorry," the Doctor said as Sylvia sobbed against his chest, her fists clenched tightly around the lapels of his jacket.

The Doctor held Sylvia close as she clutched at him and cried. The sounds coming from her were the broken, anguished cries of a woman who been through hell, only to come out the other side and lose everything. He wanted to comfort her, to protect her. They never got on, which was as much his fault as hers, he could never forgive the way Sylvia treated her daughter. But he suddenly realized that he cared deeply for Sylvia, and as he held her he knew there was a simple reason for that.

Sylvia was family.

And she loved Donna, he knew. To both of them she was the most important woman in their lives.

"I promise," the Doctor said softly against the top of her head, "I'm going to find her. Even if it takes me a hundred years, I'm going to find her."

"What do you mean?" Sylvia demanded, standing abruptly and pushing him back. "What do you mean? Is-is Donna still alive?!"

"Donna is alive?!" Shaun said, undisguised hope in his voice. His face lit up. "I knew it! I knew she was!"

Sylvia snorted in a vaguely disdainful way as she stepped back from the Doctor, which puzzled him. He watched her as she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket to dab at her face.

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair. He didn't bother hiding his confusion. "I think so. That's part of why I'm here. I got a note saying she was out, but I don't know exactly what that means. I-I was hoping she'd be here-"

"Well, she's not," Sylvia said, shortly, the usual steel in her words and posture returning. "And you can just as well turn around and march back to that police box of yours and find my daughter!" She stopped, took a deep breath in. She looked right into his eyes, piercing him. "Is my father dead?" she asked calmly.

"Yes," the Doctor said, without hesitation and with every ounce of feeling he had. Sylvia deserved the undisguised truth from him.

"Where is he now?"

"UNIT is taking care of him. They will contact you once he is ready and you can see him," the Doctor said.

She nodded curtly, and looked away. She took a deep breath through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Then she looked at him once more. "Bring her home to me. Understood?"

"I will find her, Sylvia," the Doctor said firmly, looking straight into her eyes. "I will find her. I will find Donna Noble even if it takes me one hundred years."

Sylvia pursed her lips, pausing for a moment as she studied his face. The Doctor meant every word he said with every cell in his body and he willed Sylvia to see that. "See that you do," Sylvia finally said.

* * *

When Donna landed from the vortex, she found herself on her back staring up at the white, bright sky. Spires of a strange city surrounded her, going up and up, hundreds of floors high. Maybe thousands. It was giving her vertigo looking at them, so she closed her eyes. She could feel the planet spinning through space, circling the sun, but it felt odd. Like the ground was miles below.

"Using a vortex manipulator isn't supposed to feel like that," Donna said out loud.

Then she noticed the ground she was lying on was moving.

Donna struggled to her feet on the moving walkway. She looked down as she tried to find a semblance of balance. Not only were the buildings looming above her, they seemed to go on several hundred stories below her too. _Figures,_ she thought, _Why is that time travel never takes you to the exact time and place you want to be?_ She processed that as she looked up and around. People were gaping at her and she self-consciously tried to adjust her war warn clothes. She must be a sight. Her clothes were torn and she was covered in soot, red sand, and a good deal of grime.

It didn't give people a right to stare. Donna gave the closest couple her best glare and they turned away quickly.

"That's what I thought," she said as she tried to straighten her tunic.

There were robots everywhere. Cleaning robots, robots directly traffic, robots handing out take away from various windows, people with personal robots-

Since the only robot she owned was a half-functioning roomba, Donna knew this was definitely not 21st century Earth and definitely the future. But still Earth. Newly awakened senses of time and space, how the dimensions weaved and bound the universes together, were telling her that she was on her home planet. Just when she didn't want to be. 

Donna turned her wrist over to examine the vortex manipulator, but it was dead. She hit a few buttons, but the panel wouldn't activate, and she didn't feel the tell-tale pull through the pressure points of her wrist that told her the temporal field was activated. "Must be short-circuited. Wonder if it's the temporal circuits or the extrapolated space-time calibrators," she muttered, "Probably the latter because Halcyon needed to be in range on the planet outside the TARDIS-"

Donna paused, looking up from the vortex manipulator. "How the bloody hell do I know that?!" She thought the Doctor's memories were erased once her brain was rewired. Apparently she still retained of his jibber-jabber know-how, without any of the actual memories of his life.

Truthfully she didn't want him running around in her head. Not anymore.

"Well, I can't get anywhere or anywhen with a broken vortex manipulator, can I?" Donna said to herself. "What to do now?" 

She looked around. She noticed a young person, maybe thirteen or fourteen, was standing on the walkway next to the one she was on, a bemused expression on his face. He had one finger out-stretched in the air like he was in the middle of tracing something.

"Something in my teeth?" she asked him with all the snark she could muster.

The boy shook his head. "You were talking to yourself," he said. Donna noticed that instead of human ears, he had distinctly feline ears on the top of his head and his head was covered in a chocolate brown mixture of fur and hair that matched his skin.

"What's with the cat ears?" Donna asked him, pointing and waving her finger around.

The boy brushed a hand over his ears. "My parents got my bodypeddle for my birthday."

"You're human then?"

The boy bristled. "Of course I'm human, everyone is human here. In the Overcities anyway-"

"It's just you have cat ears. And a big fluffy tail-"

"Haven't you see bodypeddle before?! You must have, no one has had your hair color naturally in a few centuries," he snapped, and tossed his hair-fur. "What's wrong? Don't you like it?"

Donna pursed her lips into a thin line and nodded slowly. "Yeah," she said, exaggerating the vowels of the word, "They...suit you." Donna wondered just how far she had landed in the future. Time travel had taught her she would have trouble relating to humans in any era, almost like they were aliens themselves. But at the same time, it was important to her to try and relate to people no matter where or when they were from.

Even if they were human teenagers with cat ears, tails, and fur.

"I like your look too. Very vintage. And grungy," he said. He gave her a friendly smile.

Donna smiled wanly. Vintage, just what every adult wanted to hear from a teenager in every Earth era that ever was. "Can you tell me where I am, Sunshine?" Donna asked in the brightest way she could.

The boy blinked at her. "Um...this is level 367. Grid number 65 I think. Are you trying to get somewhere?" he asked.

"Home," Donna said, wistfully. "I'm having tremendous trouble finding it."

"What level do you live on?" he asked.

"Oh, um...I don't. Not here anyway. I used to live in a flat that...was quite a few levels up," Donna said, intentionally trying to be vague, "But before that I lived in a box with a skinny twit."

"What's a twit?" the boy asked.

"What is this, twenty questions?" Donna snapped, and the boy jumped a bit. "Sorry," she said. Cat boy didn't deserve her anger. She'd get to the one who did eventually. "What I meant was, do you know where I can get directions?"

"There are computer panels on every corner of the grids," the boy said. "Look over there."

He pointed. In several feet, there was a platform she could step off of in front of what looked like a computer panel. Donna thought it was as good a place as any to get information about where and when she was.

"Thanks," Donna said.

"Good luck!" Cat boy called, waving goodbye as Donna stepped off the platform.

Donna waved back before turning back to the computer panel.

There didn't seem to be a button to activate the screen, and Donna tried touching it, but it remained black. "Um, hello? Anybody home?"

The screen immediately flashed. "Welcome to Spaceport Five Overcity Information Panel #2,677."

"Thank you," Donna said, bemused.

"Identification please." A red light started flashing in the white paneling to the left. Donna searched her pockets for Halcyon's psychic paper. "Hold on a tic," she said, "Here it is."

She held it up to the red light and moved it back and forth as if to scan it. The light quickly turned green.

"Would you like general history and information or specific inquiry?"

"Specifics only please," Donna said, "What is the date and time?"

"Time: eleven-o-one hundred hours. Date: Westember thirteenth 2910."

"Westember, what does that mean?! Nevermind!" Donna said when images and articles started scrolling on screen to prepare to educate her on the history of Westember. "Just tell me if there is a shop near where I can acquire extrapolated calibrators."

There was a brief pause. "I'm sorry, extrapolated calibrators did not match any search criteria."

"Of course not," Donna said, "Humans haven't discovered time-travel yet. I was hoping there might be an alien shop or two on thirtieth century Earth."

"Alien technology is forbidden on Earth by the Empress of the Great Human Empire."

"Is it now?!" Donna said. "Why so?"

Instead of answering her, the machine gave her the date the law was enacted and the punishment for being in possession of contraband, including something called brainwipe and corporation indenture. 

Donna looked around before carefully unstrapping the vortex manipulator from her wrist and pocketing it. "That doesn't help me at all. Over my dead body will _anyone_ be wiping my brain again," she said quietly, more to herself than the computer, "And temping is punishment now? What a lark." Donna tossed her hair over her shoulder, pushing away the image of the Doctor reaching for her face to force her memories away. She squared off against the computer. "All right then. Where can a girl find a place to sit down? Like a park with lots of trees? Assuming Earth still has trees-"

A map appeared on the screen, with a green dot representing Donna's current position and a red dot on a park some floors below and several blocks over. Donna quickly memorized it. The city itself was a three dimensional grid, so it shouldn't be terribly difficult to find. If, she thought, she could manage the moving walkways.

Donna stepped back onto the walkway. She smiled slightly at the couple next to her, but only because they were glaring aghast at her, probably appalled by her attire.

"Oh don't look at me like that," Donna said to the woman, "your dress looks like it's made of hawk feathers! And is your skin _fuchsia?_ Did you dye your skin pink?!"

Both of them started walking quickly away, moving up several meters ahead of her. "Good riddance," Donna thought, folding her arms. 

Donna found the park with no trouble. Her time sense told her she had been awake for just over sixty-seven minutes. The weather hardly changed a degree in that time, and despite the sunny weather, Donna's skin remained cool. She wondered if it was even real sunshine or if damage to the ozone rendered Earth's natural atmosphere unviable-

_Blimey, even my thoughts sound like him,_ Donna thought. _Am I turning into a mad alien?_

When the metacrisis happened before, Donna was overwhelmed and delighted. The whole universe crammed into her head, her Doctor's universe, open before her. She could finally be his equal and they would travel the stars together.

It didn't feel like that this time. She didn't feel like Donna plus the Doctor in her head. She felt like Donna, who happened to know loads of stuff she didn't know before. She felt like Donna, but she was no longer human. She sat down on a bench in a funny little park in a floating city of the future, and wondered why she felt incredibly sad, like she was grieving for her lost humanity.

Before, it wasn't so frightening to become an alien. She had her best-friend by her side, a man she trusted with her life. A misplaced trust. Because that same day he had her whole life in his hands and he took it away. 

Donna had spent the year without her life trying to fit herself back into a formula she thought would make her happy. A wedding, a husband, a mortgage. She had spent hours in parks just like this one crying the same frustrated tears she was crying at that moment because she had no idea what was missing, what had went wrong, why she couldn't get the formula right.

And look at the people she had hurt in the process. Her gramps, her mother. Poor, dreaming Shaun Temple. 

Donna frowned. She turned her left hand and started spinning the simple silver band around her finger. Shaun had no idea who she was, not really. He loved a sad shell of a woman and he deserved someone who was as devoted to him and he was to her. And she wished she could be that woman, Donna thought as she continued to cry on that bench and twirl his ring, she wanted to be Shaun Temple's wife. She loved him because all he did was reach into the holes in her heart to keep the loneliness at bay.

But Shaun Temple didn't need to be burdened with a funny little alien woman who happened to be incredibly lonely.

"Stop it, Donna," she told herself, once again pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes to push back the tears. "You can't wallow like this. You need to get home to your family."

Easier said than done. Donna pulled out the vortex manipulator and the sonic screwdriver. Scans proved what she already suspected, that the miniature time-space manipulator was shorted-out. It certainly couldn't get her home.

Next Donna pulled out her mobile. She was puzzled when the screen showed she had one missed call. Donna flipped it open and saw the call was from her grandfather. The last she heard of Wilf, he was being held by that deranged psychopath. Did he get free and try to call her? Did that mad man tell him what happened to her?

Donna scanned the phone with the screwdriver. There weren't any satellites orbiting thirtieth century Earth so Donna's phone was useless...for the most part. If there was another twenty-first century phone on the planet that she knew the number to she could use sonic waves to contact it, like on Messaline. By that same logic, she could rewire her mobile with the temporalschematic wires in the vortex manipulator and possibly be able to call another twenty-first century mobile. As long as that mobile existed in all time and space at the same time...since it would only be able to access the vortex...

There was another funny little alien running around time and space, Donna thought. Another lonely alien like her. He had a mobile and a time machine and he could take her home.

She really didn't want to call him. Part of her was terrified. After all that time, she was back to being scared him. But Donna was never a woman to back down when she was scared, so she used the screwdriver to dismantle her mobile and the vortex manipulator and carefully started rewiring both.

It was a tedious process, but Donna took her time. Hurrying through these things resulted in sparks and fires, and that's the last thing she wanted on an Earth where alien technology was forbidden. But the tediousness of the rewiring process left her thoughts and feelings wide open and she couldn't help but analyze them. _Maybe I'm not scared of him,_ Donna thought, _Maybe I'm just furious that he took my life and then left me alone this long._

There was something else there, she knew, looking up and across the sunny and impossibly cool park. She was angry, and she wasn't sure she could trust him again, but below that, simmering under the layers of her emotions, Donna ached for home. For traveling, learning, and growing through time and space. For him. Her mad, wonderful friend.

"Oh," Donna said, both a sob and a sigh, "I need him."

She finished hooking up the phone to the vortex and Donna realized without the proper calibrators she would only be able to send a brief message and then she'd lose the signal, if she managed to send the signal at all. With her luck, that daft man would talk over her before she could tell him when and where she was.

Best not to use the earpiece and just say what she needed to say. He had an eidetic, he'd remember hearing it even if he couldn't listen for three and a half seconds.

"All right," Donna said, "let's get this over with." She aimed the sonic at the temporalschematic circuit wired to her mobile's data port. And sent the signal.

* * *

Sylvia had insisted on staying at home, arguing that someone needed to be there on the off chance that Donna made it back. "Besides," she had told him, without disguising the disgust in her voice, "You'll never catch me getting into that-that _thing!_ " She indicated the TARDIS with a wave of her hand.

"We should go back to the flat," Shaun Temple said. "Donna could show up there. We can be there in five minutes, I know all the shortcuts-"

Shaun was already walking towards the familiar and hated blue compact car the Doctor recognized as Donna's.

"Actually," the Doctor called, "we'll take mine, shall we?" He turned back towards the TARDIS, not checking to see if Donna's fiancé would follow him because he knew he would.

Like all humans, Shaun cautiously followed the Doctor through the door of his police box and paused at the entrance, taking in the coral structure of the TARDIS console room. The Doctor didn't do his usual welcoming speech, mostly because he had no time or patience for it, but partly because a rebellious and deeply buried part of him felt this other man was an intruder.

"The address, Shaun Temple?" the Doctor called when he reached the location settings at the console. "Preferably latitude and longitude if you have them, I have more flexibility with exact locations, and less likely to materialize around unsuspecting life forms while they're taking tea, if the street layouts changed that decade. But street addresses work fine too...Shaun?" 

Shaun started, looking away from the wires along the ceiling and back at the Doctor. He shook himself, dark eyes blinking. "Right, sorry," Shaun said, and he gave the Doctor his street address.

The Doctor plugged them into the TARDIS and ran around the console to flip the level that would send them into the vortex. His ship responded quickly, he could feel her anxiousness for Donna mirroring his own. The time rotor whirred, pulling them into the vortex. From the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Shaun Temple wrap his arms around the coral pillar closest to the door. They were out of the vortex again in only moments, materializing in the alley next to the building the Temple-Nobles lived in.

The Doctor observed Shaun briefly as the other man cautiously looked around the still TARDIS before unwrapping his death grip on the pillar.

"Allons-y, Shaun?" the Doctor said, and he briskly started to walk towards the door, walking past him.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor paused before he reached the door. There was a strange note in Shaun's voice, one he wouldn't expect in a man of his character. It was the tone of someone about to demand answers from someone who wasn't inclined to make demands.

Jealousy was not a strange emotion for the Doctor. He had been in similar situations before. But it was different with Shaun because the Doctor wasn't competing with a rival for the affections of someone he cared about. Donna Noble could never be with him without risking her life and she had chosen Shaun Temple. With him, she was happy and he couldn't begrudge them that happiness. He could be jealous, he could wish it was him, but he couldn't begrudge them.

He turned and met Shaun Temple eyes.

Shaun sniffed, breaking eye contact, but his voice didn't lose its edge.

"You're the doctor Donna used to travel with? The one Wilf told me about?" Shaun asked.

The Doctor wondered how much Wilf had explained to Shaun Temple. Not that it mattered, considering the recent alien invasion of Earth and the fact they were standing in his intratemporaldimensional ship.

"Right, that's me," the Doctor said.

Shaun nodded like it was the answer he was expecting. "Back when Donna and I first started dating, Wilf said you might be coming back. I think he was trying to protect me. He didn't want me to get my heart broken, even though it was already too late. I fell in love with Donna the first day I met her," Shaun said, his eyes lighting up, before they quickly darkened again. "Sylvia though...she said you wouldn't come back if you knew what was good for you." Shaun paused. He smiled sadly. "Sylvia...she doesn't like me much."

"Oh, she can't stand me," the Doctor said. Then he winced because it sounded like he was turning it into a competition.

"No, you're wrong," Shaun said. He looked back up and met the Doctor's eyes again. "You're wrong about Sylvia. You should have heard her, the way she was talking to the sky when that red planet was hurtling towards us. The way she was talking to you. She was reverent. She believed you would save us all. I think she cares about you very much." Shaun sighed heavily. "And so does Donna-"

"Shaun-" the Doctor started, not wanting to hear.

"No, she does. Wilf said if she ever remembers you, she'd die. But she can't forget. She dreams about you. She wakes up crying and she can't remember why. She looks up at the sky with such a wistful expression on her face. It's like she used to be a bird and she forgot how to fly," Shaun said, and his voice broke. "I try to be enough for her. To give her what she wants. But I know I'm not. She grieves every day."

The Doctor felt the weight of what Shaun was telling him settle on his shoulders. He thought nothing could make him sink lower when it came to Donna, but he was wrong. Donna was not happy here in her old life. She really was just making do.

"Why are you telling me this?" the Doctor asked him.

Shaun put his hands in his pockets. He set his jaw and looked right at him. "Because if we open the door and she's there, waiting," he said, "We both have to do the best thing for Donna."

"I will," the Doctor said, "I always do what's right-"

"I'm not talking about what's right! 'Right' is so arbitrary," Shaun scoffed, "I said do the best thing for Donna. That means putting aside what I think is right, putting aside what you think is right, and do what Donna would want." Shaun moved to meet the Doctor by the door. "We both need more practice at that," he said.

The Doctor smiled. Oh yes. The Doctor decided he liked Shaun Temple very much. He may be a dreamer, but he was brilliant.

"I reckon we do," the Doctor said, and he opened the door.

Shaun stepped outside while fishing in his pocket for his keys. "We live on the fourth floor. Donna would always joke about how she'd be in the best shape of her life after living here for a year-"

The Doctor watched Shaun Temple walk off, pondering what the other man said about doing what was right.

Before he could follow Shaun out of the TARDIS, the mobile in his pocket started to ring.


	7. Chapter 7

The mobile phone Martha Jones had given him was ringing in his pocket. The Doctor froze in the doorway of the TARDIS and quickly fished it out. There was no number or name on the screen, but he hardly registered that before he flipped the mobile open.

"Hello?!"

"Can't hear you, the earpiece isn't working. I'm on a transdimensional signal using temporalschematics of an uncalibrated vortex manipulator. So for God's sake, STAY IN THE TARDIS."

The Doctor's hearts clenched, his breath hitched, his stomach rolled. Donna Noble's voice washed over him and every cell in his body was at attention trying to absorb every consonant and vowel. She was on the phone! Donna was actually on the phone taking to him!

"You can't access the vortex without calibrators, the signal would be too unstable!" the Doctor said, even though she couldn't hear him, even though _obviously_ the impossible Donna Noble had done exactly that.

"Listen, I'm somewhere called Spaceport Overcity Five. On Westember thirteenth, 2910...oh, _bugger-_ "

The Doctor immediately did an about face and ran towards the location settings in the central console, fingers of one hand flying across the keys as he clung to the mobile.

"Seems I'm being watched, that's no good. Got to run, but please come get me, so far I don't like this century much at-"

The connection died.

"She wouldn't like that century," the Doctor said grimly, flinging the phone towards its home in the console. "No one liked that century. Other humans didn't like that century." He ran back towards the still open door.

"Oi, Shaun Temple! I know where you intended is!" the Doctor shouted. He turned and ran back towards the central council. "Or should I say _when_ she is, because it seems she was entirely displaced in time, but perhaps not space-!" the Doctor said, fingers flying across the council as he prepared the TARDIS for travel.

"Blimey, you can shout! What were you saying about Donna?!" Shaun was standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, one arm still wrapped around the outside doorframe as though he were reluctant to return to the spaceship.

"We're off to go fetch her! I just need you to step inside so the TARDIS can calibrate herself for travel-" the Doctor said without looking up, waving one hand towards Shaun to indicate he should come closer.

"I think...I think it would be better for me to stay at the flat. In case she makes it back here first someone needs to be here to meet her-" Shaun said, and he took a step back.

"That is highly unlikely!" the Doctor said, advancing towards the door. It needed to be shut so the TARDIS could travel, so he had to get Shaun inside.

"Nevertheless, I think I should stay!" Shaun said, and he stepped back from the doorway into the alley. "Just in case. It's better this way, Doctor."

The Doctor paused for only a moment to look at the other man. He wasn't sure if it was fear of the TARDIS motivating Shaun, or if he truly felt he had to be ready to meet Donna in the flat in case she appeared. Or if Shaun meant something entirely different when he said it was better he didn't come.

"If that's what you want," the Doctor said, moving to close the door.

"Just...just tell Donna I'll be here. Waiting for her," Shaun called.

"Of course," the Doctor said, "Until we meet again, Shaun Temple!"

The Doctor hardly moved to close the doors before they shut on their own. He turned back towards the council and immediately flung the lever that sent the TARDIS into the vortex. "Let's go get our Donna back, Old Girl!" he shouted.

* * *

The Doctor sprinted out of the TARDIS onto a moving walkway of Spaceport Overcity Five. Or at least it was supposed to be moving. The walkway was stopped, lit up by strips of red lights along either side. Citizens of thirtieth century Earth were scrambling to get off the stopped walkway onto platforms or inside nearby buildings.

In the distance below he could hear the whir of a sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor scrambled to the edge of the stopped walkway, pushing past groups of confused people stopping to see what the commotion was about. "Excuse me! Pardon!" the Doctor said as he pushed himself in front of a couple near the edge and looked down. Far below, the next grid down, he could see three Adjudicator flitters zooming in the air along another stopped walkway chasing a sprinting figure pushing past crowds of people.

A figure with flaming red hair trailing behind her.

"Do not run on the moving walkways!" an Adjudicator shouted through a voice enhancer.

"They're not _bloody moving!_ " Donna shouted back. She was just as loud, if not louder, than the Adjudicator.

"Donna Noble, still hasn't changed," the Doctor said, turning to the woman next to him with a manic grin on his face. The woman, a short, stout lady with white and gold peacock feathers instead of hair, just stared back.

"Do you know where the closest tube down is?" the Doctor asked her.

The woman quickly turned away, looking at him like he was mad and that it was contagious.

"There's one a block down, but it's not working. The Adjudicators turned it off."

The Doctor looked down his other side at a young man with dark brown cat ears and a tail.

"What for?" the Doctor asked him.

"Law chase. That woman down there is using illegal alien technology," he said, pointing at Donna's retreating form in the distance.

"Oh you thirtieth century humans and your aversion to aliens! If I told you how many of your modern technologies were inspired by aliens - since the sixteenth century, mind you! Possibly longer! - then maybe you would stop and think before condemning someone! Either that or you'd have to stop using your buckles and toasters and lights that turn on and off when you clap and five dimensional massively multiplayer onli-"

"Toasters?" the boy asked.

"Right, toasters, a bit before your time," the Doctor said. He looked around. "I really didn't want to have to do this twice today. I'm already banged up as it is, but here you have it. Thanks for your help."

The Doctor jumped off the walkway to the grid below.

"You're welcome!" the boy called after him.

* * *

Donna was being chased by various flying saucer police vehicles, robots, and angry lawmen that called themselves "adjudicators". After successfully avoiding them by using the crowded, moving walkway grid system to her advantage, they had cut the power to the tubes and walkways, probably hoping to dissuade her. Oddly, most of the people didn't even think to keep moving once the ground stopped moving for them. Donna saw variations of confusion, frustration, and sheer panic. It was absolutely daft.

She discovered she could delay the flying police things by a few seconds by using the traffic conductor signals on the corners of the grids. She would signal them to think an emergency vehicle was approaching, and the vehicles behind her would stop automatically at the junction due to some built-in safety mechanism. That bought her enough time to activate the moving walkways at maximum speed and sprint down them. Panicked citizens of Earth would stumble off to the side and Donna would zip by, sprinting as the walkway moved across the city. It was keeping her ahead, but barely. She'd only been doing it for a few minutes, but the pace was grueling.

"If only every corner didn't look the same in the future!" Donna shouted, "Then maybe I could hide in an alley or something-"

At the next corner, she signaled the traffic to halt behind her, and turned left.

Donna heard the distinct sound of one of the floating cars behind her and her heart sank. Well, it really did take longer than she thought it would, but they had to catch her eventually-

The vehicle pulled up next to her. Donna did a double take when she saw who was driving it.

"Doctor?!"

"Donna!" he shouted back. His hair was whipping wildly around his face. Brown, pinstriped jacket straining against the single button holding it closed as it flapped in the breeze. "Come on, you have to jump!"

Donna stopped running and looked back. The other cars were turning the corner two blocks back, speeding towards them.

"I have this walkway going at maximum, I'm not going to jump from a moving walkway into a moving vehicle when I'm several thousand meters off the ground-!" she shouted at him.

"You have to, Donna, please! I'll catch you! I can put this on autopilot-" the Doctor said, waving his sonic screwdriver at the controls.

"Doctor-!"

"Donna, trust me!" the Doctor pleaded. She watched as he hooked his leg around the seat and held out his arms, eyes wide.

"Trust you?! _Trust you?!_ After what I've been through for the last six months, you want me to fucking _trust you?!_ " Donna shouted at him.

"Are you really bringing this up now?!" he asked her, his voice rising in pitch.

"Goddam it, Doctor-!"

"Donna, please, _please_ believe me, I will catch you, I will, and then I will take us home. I promise, I will _not_ be losing you again!"

Donna looked back at the advancing vehicles before turning back to the Doctor and the desperate look in his eyes. She wanted, oh how she wanted, to run to him, to run away from him, to hurt him and to save him. Her heart was beating painfully in her chest from the emotion swelling in her body. And she did what she did the first time.

Donna jumped.

The Doctor fell backwards as Donna fell on top of him, and the car tilted dangerously before righting itself automatically. Donna scrambled off the Doctor and he immediately set himself at the controls.

"You know how to drive one of these flying saucer cars?" Donna asked.

"It's called a flitter, and of course I do! I learned how to fly a flitter centuries ago-!"

"Doctor-"

"Let me just see if I can override the grid's guiding mechanism! If I can route the flitter up instead of forward, we might be able to cut back and reach the TARDIS before the Adjudicators short out the grid's guidance and location systems-"

"Doctor-!"

"One of these days I'm going to install a remote materializer in the sonic-"

"Doctor! This flittier thing is slowing down, they're gaining on us!" Donna shouted.

The Doctor looked back and saw that the Adjudicators were advancing on them quickly. "They must have already overridden those location and guidance systems you were worried about," Donna said.

"We're too far up to jump onto the walkways. If I cut the gravity sensor, we'll just plummet to the Undercity below, and then it might be days before we manage to get back up to the TARDIS-"

 _"Days?!"_ Donna demanded.

"Donna, how did you get the vortex manipulator to work without calibrators?!"

"I triple backed on the signal until it was reinforced in the vortex-"

The Doctor yanked on her wrist. The vortex manipulator was strapped to it, along with her mobile phone. "We might be able to use that method and the grid signals to get us up to the TARDIS, but only just, hold on, I'll use your mobile to call the grid and pull us through," the Doctor said, and he was pointing his screwdriver at Donna's wrist before she could protest.

"Doctor, don't, it's too dangerous to teleport two people on an uncalibrated vortex manipulator, let alone one, and these grid signals are too basic, certainly not compatible with the complex signaling the vortex manipulator utilizes! We might end up in pieces on the other side of the plan-"

Donna felt a wrenching pain is her gut as she was pulled through the vortex and onto the hard rock beneath her feet. She immediately fell to her knees and dry heaved on the rocky earth. She vaguely heard the Doctor doing the same next to her. Donna pushed back to her feet and looked around. In the distance, through the smog, across the dead earth, she could see a city being pummeled by thick rain. Thrusting antigravity turrets burst from the city's center to support the Overcity far above in the sky.

From the corner of her eye, Donna saw the Doctor move to his feet. Suddenly she was overwhelmingly furious, months of sickness and pain culminating into one feeling. She advanced on him.

The Doctor immediately tried moving away when he saw how angry she was, but he wasn't quick enough. Donna slapped him violently across the face and he stumbled backwards, nearly falling back over.

"You could have bloody killed us! The vortex could have ripped our bodies apart if you were even a decimal off in aligning those signals!"

"I was trying to help!" he shouted at her.

Donna slapped him again. He didn't stumble as much, but he raised a hand to his face as she stomped towards him.

"Trying to help?! _Trying to help?!_ I didn't ask for your help! I'm _sick_ of your version of so-called _help!_ The sort that doesn't even consider the consequences his _help_ brings to others! How those people have to live with your decisions! Bloody impulsive, selfish _alien-!_ "

"Donna," the Doctor said. He had stopped moving. Donna realized she was standing very close to him. She was breathing heavily and so was he.

The resigned tone in his voice stopped Donna's tirade because they both realized they were talking about more than the vortex manipulator. He reached towards her, but stopped before he actually touched her, clenching his fist and bringing it back down. Donna could see he was pale, could see every cut and bruise on his body and the holes and tears in his clothes. His freckles stood out on his face. He looked war torn and tired, as much as she felt war torn and tired. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to comfort him. The duality and ferocity of her emotions were tearing her up. It felt like an assault, like the sight and smell and sound of him was going to break apart whatever was left of her being held together.

"I'm sorry, Donna Noble. I'm so sorry. I never thought-"

"No, you didn't," Donna whispered. "But at least you're _sorry._ At least you'll wallow in your guilt like usual," she finished, her sardonic tone thickly coating the last remarks. 

He looked at her, brown eyes wide, his expression raw and pleading. "You're right, Donna," he said. "I-I'm selfish. I couldn't let you die. I couldn't go on in a universe that condemned you to die so you could save everything."

"But it wasn't your choice. It was mine. _Mine._ I chose to die a whole person! And you took my choice! You-you took my memories! You went into my head even when I told you, _when I begged you,_ not to! You had no right-!"

"Donna, I couldn't-!"

"I don't care what you could or couldn't do! You have no idea what I've been through! Headaches and nightmares and constant crying. I _never_ cried like this before! I'm _depressed,_ Doctor, well and truly! You thought it would be easy to break apart my mind and put it back together, but no, you left me _broken and violated!_ Fractured and struggling to figure out why, why it felt like a whole part of me was missing..."

Donna stopped. The Doctor had finally decided to touch her, running his hands up and down her upper arms. She shivered, and took a step back, out of his reach.

"I suppose if you could do it all again, you'd do the same?" she asked.

He said nothing, just looked at her sadly. Donna's eyes hardened and she turned and walked towards the city in the distance.

"What do you want me to say?!" the Doctor demanded, following her. "That I'd let you die? Because I can't. _I won't._ And I'm selfish, and I'm wrong, but I _won't ever let you die._ Not for me! Not if I can stop it!"

The Doctor caught up with her and moved to stand in front of her, blocking her path.

"I-I tried without you, Donna, but I lost control. I thought I could save everyone, that I could fix things so everyone was saved, be victorious, but-" The Doctor shook himself, raised his hands to his face. Donna watched as he began to cry, earnestly. "I get tired of it sometimes. Of saving so many people when so many more die. When the people who get close, the people I love also die. And the older I get, the more tired I get."

"You can't save everyone, Doctor. But you can always save someone. Remember?" Donna said.

"I saved you," the Doctor said.

"You didn't though," Donna said, "I was hurt, terribly so. I was sick and sad every day. I was empty and I was draining away. You say you don't want people to die for you, that you didn't want me to die for you. But I did die. The person I became, the wonderful things I saw and did, they were gone. I went back to who I was before. I was less than who I was before."

"I know that now, I do, and I'm sorry, and I'll regret hurting you for the rest of my life, but I can't regret saving you, Donna Noble, even a small part of you. You are the someone worth saving every time," he said, catching her eye and holding it, "Because you saved me."

"Doctor," Donna said softly. She felt it then, like she was giving into him. He was standing in front of her, pleading with her to understand, and it was too much. He broke her heart every time.

Whether he heard it or felt it, the Doctor didn't hesitate to reach for her again. He wrapped his fingers around her shoulders, and when she didn't step away, he took that last step forward, wrapping his arms around her waist and shoulders. Donna slowly reached around his neck and let him pull her close. The Doctor trembled, whispered her name over and over _Donna, oh Donna_ as he buried his head into her shoulder. Donna held him and comforted him with soothing noises, taking the comfort from his arms in return. It wasn't perfect, because they were a long way from being right, but for the first time Donna thought they might be okay. She felt herself begin to let go.

"Shh, Spaceman," Donna said, running a hand through his hair. "It's all right. I'll be all right. We'll be all right."

He clung to her tighter, her best friend in the entire universe.

* * *

Both of them could tell they simply traveled through space, not time, to the outside of the grid the hijacked the signal on. They were walking towards the Undercity in the distance. There was nothing but rock in front of them, not a stream, not a blade of grass. The rocky earth was hilly and, in some places, very steep. But it was definitely dead.

"Earth, thirtieth century," Donna said. "How sad."

"This is why the first Great Human Empire left Earth the first time," the Doctor explained. "The planet was near death. Overexploited. Overpopulated. Humans started immigrating to other planets. And when the native populations refused to join the so-called "empire" the humans conquered it with force."

"How awful," Donna said.

"Probably more bad apples than good," the Doctor said. "But there were still good." He sniffed, wrinkling his eyes. Donna turned to look at him.

"You look awful," she said.

"Speak for yourself."

"Oi!" she said, trying not to smile. "I've been through a lot, Spaceman, with no shower readily available. Don't start with me."

"Don't start with _me,_ Earthgirl," he answered, with a playful waggle of his eyebrows. Then he frowned. "Hopefully the Adjudicators will find us soon."

"What? The Adjudicators? You mean the people trying to arrest us?! You _want_ them to find us?" Donna demanded, rounding on him.

"Donna, the atmosphere is too thin for us to breathe much longer," the Doctor explained. "We might be able to reach the Undercity, if we're very, very lucky, but we have a better chance at survival if the Adjudicators find us."

"That's just what I need, thirtieth century jail time. They better stay out of my head, Martian, or so help you the next time I get my memory back," Donna said.

"Don't worry, they didn't manage a brainwipe last time I was arrested in the thirtieth century," the Doctor said.

"You have a record?!"

"Not me per se. Different face at the time. Also, it was during the latter half of the thirtieth century, not the beginning, so I don't have a record _yet_ and it wasn't me that had a record in the future. This future, my past. Not that me anyway," he said.

"Doctor," Donna warned, reaching to pinch the bridge of her nose.

He didn't have much longer to ramble because soon they could see three flitters in the distance and coming up to them fast. The Doctor and Donna both stopped walking and waited.

A uniformed woman with cropped olive green hair stepped down from the flitter while the rest trained weapons upon them. The Doctor raised his hands in surrender and Donna did the same.

The woman with green hair started speaking. "I am obliged to inform you that your words, gestures, and postures are being recorded and may form part of any legal action taken against you. Under the terms of data protection act 2820, I am also obliged to inform you-"

"Does that man look like a poodle to you?" Donna asked the Doctor, pointing to one of the Adjudicators with her raised hand.

"Donna, time and place," the Doctor said.

"Right," Donna said.

The woman cleared her throat. "I am also obliged to inform you that you and any appointed legal representative will be able to purchase a copy of all recordings upon payment of the standard fee-"

"It's just," Donna said to the Doctor, "Poodle-people?"

"Don't be so judgmental, Donna," the Doctor admonished. "Think about what nose jobs and botox looks like to humans from the Dark Ages."

"You're right, course you're right," Donna said.

"Are you two quite finished? Can we get on with the arrest now?" the Adjudicator demanded.

The Doctor waved his raised hand. "Carry on," he said.

* * *

The holding cells were very cramped. Donna and the Doctor were placed into individual cubes and shuffled into the wall. A forcefield went up with a whoosh. Donna tentatively reached for it. It felt like glass.

There were prisoners above them and below them. All sound asleep in their own cubes.

"Why is everyone sleeping?" Donna asked.

"Probably a sedative being ventilated into the cells," the Doctor said. "I can smell it. Harmless to Time Lords, so it won't affect me."

"I guess it won't affect me either then," Donna said, sliding the floor. "Which is a shame. I'm knackered."

The Doctor looked at her from the corner of his eye and sat down next to her, a glass wall between them. When he was sure no one but Donna would notice, he slipped his sonic screwdriver from where he hid it in his transdimensional pockets and started testing frequencies on the forcefields. "What happened to you, Donna?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm half alien now, you prawn, don't you remember?" Donna teased. "But you'll never believe it. I was on Gallifrey. I was saved by a bunch of daft Martians like you." The whirring of the sonic stopped so Donna turned to look at him. He gazed at her in open astonishment.

"Really? Gallifrey?" he asked, his voice curiously high.

"Oh, it was beautiful and sad, Doctor," Donna said. "It's hard for me, seeing the Earth this dried out and dead. But your planet was burning apart from the inside. Everything was on fire." She stopped. She looked down and brushed at her arms and her clothes. "This red sand on my skin. This is the last of Gallifrey, isn't it?"

The Doctor looked at the dirt and soot smeared across Donna's arms, her clothes, her face. The sad melancholy in her beautiful blue eyes.

"Yes," he said, his voice gruff. "I reckon it is."

The Doctor started with his sonic screwdriver again and Donna told him about the Time Lords and Ladies that helped her. "They all had bizarre names just like you. Lamar and Halcyon. The third, the youngest, his name was utterly unpronounceable but they called him Katja. And the Circle? What is it with your species and names? Birth names, chosen names, secret names-" Donna stopped when she realized the Doctor had stopped working again. He was looking straight ahead, his face terribly pale again.

"Doctor? Are you all right?" Donna asked.

He ran a hand through his hair. "Your friends. It's just...I think I know them. Knew them. Once. In Lungbarrow-"

"They mentioned Lungbarrow being home I think," Donna said. "It's hard to say. They were all rambling on, a lot like you do-"

"My sister's children picked the names Lamar and Halcyon," the Doctor said, so softly Donna almost didn't hear him. Her eyes went wide when she realized what he said. "I-I didn't know she had a third. You said his name was Katja?"

Donna nodded, watching him carefully. The Doctor smiled, though his eyes were wet. "What were they like?"

"They were brilliant," Donna said. "You would have been proud."

"I walked Lamar to school a few times," the Doctor said, his eyes gazing into the distance. "When I was young and still had the face I was born with. He was a bright child. He loved water, was absolutely obsessed with seeing a real ocean someday since Gallifrey had none. I always meant to show him Earth..." he trailed off, his face softly settling into grief.

Donna pressed her hand to the glass. The Doctor looked down at her hand, smiled, and pressed his hand to hers.

"It was a strange gift in retrospect," Donna said, "For me to experience that planet and those people. I think I understand you a little better now. Gallifrey was full of real people, millions of them living millions of lives like Lamar, Halcyon, and Katja. And it's gone. It's gone because of the time war," Donna said.

"It's my fault," the Doctor said.

"Doctor, we've been over this. You can't save everyone and they knew you couldn't. They knew what had to happen to save the universe. I won't have you belittling their sacrifice by wallowing in your own self-pity," Donna said sternly. "They don't want you to do that. Believe me. It's important for you to go on. For both of us to. For their sake and for ours."

The Doctor leaned his head against the wall behind him and rolled it over to face her, giving a lopsided smile. "What would I do without you, Donna Noble?"

"Obviously you know the answer to that already," Donna said sharply. "And I'm not happy with you about that. I told you to find someone, remember? I left you that message to find someone to keep you going."

"It's not easy, Donna," the Doctor said, leaning further towards her, his fingers slightly curling on the glass where his hand met hers. "Endless amounts of someones in the universe, but who I needed was you."

Donna gasped softly and her eyes snapped to his. His dark eyes were hooded, vulnerable. His forehead his the glass between them with a soft thud, strands of his thick dark hair pressed against his forehead. He was looking at her so intently. Donna's heartbeat increased and she had terribly hard time breathing, like she was back in the thinned atmosphere.

"That's not fair," Donna said. "You can't-you can't manipulate me like this. You know how I feel about you. Don't try to deny it," Donna said, removing her hand from the glass to point at him when he opened his mouth to speak. "You've been in here," Donna said, pointing at her temple, "You went deeper into my mind and feelings than you were allowed. You know I was in love with you."

The Doctor closed his mouth, saying nothing. His eyes grew troubled and even more intense, like he was searching every millimeter of her face for answers. Donna shivered, but she set her jaw. The air in her cell block switched from thin to thick and charged under his stare.

"It's all right," Donna said. "I resolved my feelings a long time ago when I realized they changed. You meant so much to me, Doctor, and I knew how much it meant for you to have a best mate. I knew you loved Rose, and how it hurt you when you gave her up so she could be happy. I knew you would never want to go through that again. Who would?"

"Donna-" the Doctor tried to interrupt.

"It's all right, Doctor, really," Donna said. She was rambling now, and she knew it, but she couldn't stop. "I knew you just wanted a friend. And I'll always be your friend. You don't have to worry about me. I had no expectations or-"

"But I do love you," he said.

Donna literally felt like she choked on the rest of the words in her throat. They came out in a strangled gasp as her eyes snapped back to the Doctor. His ancient eyes, full of starlight. There was an excitement inside of them, spreading across his face until his lips twitched into a small smile.

"No," Donna said, aghast.

"Yes," the Doctor countered, completely serious.

"But you said-" Donna said, her voice rising.

"What about what you said?! Any man would think he'd never have a chance after a speech like yours!"

"Doctor!" Donna shouted.

"Shh, you'll wake the whole prison block!" the Doctor said, bringing a finger to his lips.

Donna opened her mouth to shout again but quickly shut it. Waves of emotions were tumbling through her. Years of friendship and affection culminating in unresolved passion. Months of betrayal and wistful sadness simmering in her subconscious. Days of stress and adrenaline as she fought through a time war. And her dazzling, mad spaceman with a blue box looking at her like she was the most important creature in all of creation. Strange, unfamiliar feelings of hope and craving unfurled inside her. It made her dizzy. Giddy even. She suddenly wanted to laugh.

So she did.

The Doctor grinned at her as Donna hugged her sides and laughed until tears came out of her eyes. When she finally caught her breath she looked over at him grinning like a loon, and moved back towards him.

"You know," she said playfully, "I'm not sure I believe you."

"Believe it, Miss Noble," the Doctor said, "Impossible Bella Donna. I love you. Unavoidably, completely adore you. You came into my life like a comet and stayed in it like a guiding star. You gave as good as you got, you were generous, brave, and brilliant, and you treated me like a...like an equal," he said. "My life had light because you were in it, and it was empty and broken without you. Of course I love you, Donna," he said.

The Doctor lifted his other hand to the glass so both were pressing towards her, like he could push himself through the wall to her side. Donna smiled at him, and raised her hands to meet his. His long fingers immediately curled, trying to hold her hands. She leaned her forehead against his through the glass, wishing she could touch him, smell that spicy, spacey scent that was distinctly him, feel his breath on her face-

"Doctor," Donna whispered after a moment, "Maybe we should get this forcefield down, hmm?"

"Right," the Doctor said, his voice moving to manic territory as he snatched his sonic screwdriver and rapidly began to switch through the settings. After a moment he paused and raised a hand back to the glass, looking at her.

Donna laughed. She put her hand back, knowing he needed the connection. And they set out to find a way to escape and run away together once again.

* * *

The Doctor didn't let go of Donna's hand until they were back in the TARDIS and he had flipped the dematerialization switch. In the end, Donna discovered which settings the Doctor needed to break the forcefield, and in which order. Unfortunately it meant all the forcefields were down.

"I wouldn't worry about the other criminals," the Doctor said. "Thirtieth century government is so corrupt, most of them are probably innocent anyway. And if not, the Adjudicators will get here before they wake up. Allons-y!"

They managed to retrieve Donna's sonic screwdriver from the lockers next to the prison cells, and steal a flitter before the Adjudicators realized they had escaped. There was a second high speed chase, but they knew better how to navigate the grid, and quickly got back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor kept a physical connection to Donna the entire time. Whether it was a hand on her back, her knee, or clinging to her hand, he felt if he stopped touching her for a moment she'd somehow slip away again.

When they TARDIS started the dematerializing sequence back into the time vortex, Donna's hand slipped away and he had to fight the urge to grab for her again. Instead he watched as Donna reverently laid her palms against the council and smiled tearily.

"Hello, sweetheart," she said.

The lights in the panel in front of Donna lit up in an exuberant, friendly hello.

"Yeah," Donna said, "I missed you too."

The Doctor gave them their moment, grinning as he watched them reconnect. His smile faded when he felt a lingering sadness in the air, subtle beneath the joy coming from his TARDIS, and he realized it was coming from Donna. The Doctor looked down at the council and was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to touch Donna again. He just needed to hold her hand, to make sure she was real. No longer a memory haunting him wherever and whenever he went, but actually standing next to him.

"Let's take a trip to the medbay, shall we? I want to make sure you're all right. The wilds of Gallifrey can take a toll on a human, even a half human like you, Donna, but don't worry, nothing especially dangerous. Well, at least not dangerous in the usual sense, a time war full of Daleks is definitely dangerous. I meant nothing in the air or water would necessarily kill a human. I've had a handful of human friends on Gallifrey in the past and they were all just fine-" the Doctor said, slipping his hand into hers and turning to pull them along to the corridors.

"Doctor," Donna interrupted, gently pulling away. The Doctor turned back around. He immediately felt the loss of Donna's touch like an emptiness. "I just want a shower and a change of clothes. Then I'll meet you back here, hmm?"

"And then?" he asked, already knowing what she'd say, what had to happen. His hearts sank when he realized the moment they shared in the prison cells was gone. He wasn't a fool, far from it, and he realized that nothing Donna said indicated that she still felt the same way for him that she did the last time they stood together in the TARDIS. He should have kissed her, he realized, as he took in the sheen of Donna's hair under the blue light of the time rotor, and the spark in her eyes that were somehow more gold, somehow bluer, than they were before. The second they were out of that prison, when their hands slipped together, he should have pulled her into his arms and kissed Donna Noble like it was the last time they would have.

But he didn't. And it might have been.

"Chiswick, London?" the Doctor prompted when Donna looked reluctant to say anything.

"Yeah," Donna said. "I need to go home. I need to check on my family and Shaun. We had a big scare the day I was kidnapped."

"Of course," the Doctor said, pushing a couple of buttons on the council. "Donna," he said before she could disappear down the hallway. He turned to catch her eye. "I-I need to talk to you about what happened in London the day you disappeared. I'd rather you heard it from me."

"All right, Spaceman," she said, smiling with understanding. "Just let me get refreshed first, okay?" She turned to leave again.

"Donna," the Doctor called again. This time he moved, to the top of the ramp she was walking down to get into the interior of the TARDIS, grabbing the handrail. He buried the irrational panic that was building up, suddenly thinking that if he lost sight of her she'd disappear again, that she'd only be a dream.

"What is it now, Doctor?" Donna asked. Her brow creased and the Doctor realized she was getting annoyed. It made him nervous, but it comforted him too.

"What about after London?" he blurted out before he could stop himself. "Are you-will you-?" _Will you come back to me?_ he wanted to say, but for once words failed him.

"I don't know," Donna said, reading him like a book. "I need to be at home for a little while. I have a whole life to set right."

His face fell and Donna sighed and walked back up the ramp towards him, placing her hand on the back of his on the handrail. "Let's say I'll call you when I'm ready? Okay?"

The Doctor looked down at her, moving to interlace his fingers with hers. "How long do you think that will take?" he asked.

"Stop it, Doctor," Donna said. "I told you I don't know. I need my space. You have to give that to me, after everything that happened between us. Please?"

"I just...don't want this to be goodbye," he admitted softly, looking into her blue eyes and wishing he could stay in that moment.

"It's not," Donna said, unclasping his hand and shoving at his shoulder in the playful, friendly way she used to. "It's farewell 'til later. I know you hate goodbyes." Donna wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down and he gratefully bent over to wrap his arms around her waist and pulled her in tight, closing his eyes and relishing in the feel of the woman he loved, alive and whole, in his arms. 

All too soon she pushed away, smiling. "Now for the last time," Donna said, turning to exit down the ramp, "I'm going to go take a shower and then I'll meet you back here."

"Okay," he called after her, watching until she disappeared, banking down the urge to follow her at a distance. "I'll just be here!" he called. He should probably shower too, or at least change his suit, he thought as he fingered a hole in the sleeve of his jacket.

But he didn't want to leave and have Donna return before him. He walked back towards the council and entered in the coordinates for Chiswick, the evening of the day he left to find her in the thirtieth century. When Donna came back, he'd tell her what happened on Earth, about the Master, and her family, and Shaun, and Wilf. If she was willing to forgive him, he'd hold her while she cried. He'd take her home to her family so that they could grieve together. And then, after he left, he'd do what she asked.

The Doctor would wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I envision 30th Century Earth the way Andy Lane wrote it in the _Doctor Who_ novel [_Original Sin._](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Original_Sin_\(novel\)) I quoted the novel when I wrote the Adjudicator's miranda speech. It was the first DW novel I read, and it's still one of my favorites.


	8. Chapter 8

Donna stood at the edge of the cliff, gazing at the colorful natural amphitheaters of Bryce Canyon. The waning daylight cast a red glow over the rocky terrain. She reached around and slipped her hiking pack from her shoulders and placed it next to her feet, pulling the water bottle out of the side pocket. She quietly sipped as she gazed at the natural beauty.

Since her trip to the dying Earth of the thirtieth century, Donna had made a point to travel to some of Earth's most well-known landscapes. She went to the Cliffs of Moher, floated down the Klarälven River, walked with elephants to the Kirisia Hills, and got an eyeful of Machu Picchu during an invigorating running adventure through the Andes. She discovered she needed to reacquaint herself with the good things humanity and her tiny blue planet had to offer.

It also involved thwarting an alien invasion in the Incan ruins using her sonic screwdriver, a handful of toothpicks, and the sole of her left hiking boot. Nefarious alien plots never took a day off, she mused.

She also noticed that every cut, bruise, and scrape healed remarkably fast. Even a sprain healed within a few hours after an unfortunate waterfall incident while she was white water rafting.

All part of being half-alien, she supposed.

Earlier that year she had buried her grandfather Wilfred Mott, one of her dearest friends. The Doctor had told her of his death after and she returned to the council room that evening, so long ago. He was leaning against the council, glasses perched crookedly on his nose, and his face grim. She listened to him silently as he recounted the story in detail, not hiding his moment of selfishness and grief when he thought he would die.

"Bottom line, Donna," the Doctor said, "I was honored by what Wilfred Mott did for me. And I-I hope-" he faltered before he could finish his sentence. Donna thought that perhaps he thought he was being selfish again, asking her for forgiveness when he had already caused so much grief between them.

Donna reached for him and hugged him, let him hold her. She thought she should cry but the tears wouldn't come. After a few minutes of silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts, Donna said quietly, "It's time for me to go, Spaceman," she pulled away, looking up at his face.

He looked at her, sad and uncertain. Donna reached up and laid a hand against his cheek. "Until next time, eh?" she said, smiling softly.

He smiled back, but it was wane, and hardly reached his eyes. "Until then, Earthgirl."

They waved at each other as Donna left the TARDIS. Before the door closed behind her she thought she heard him say "Don't forget me, Donna." But it was so quiet she wasn't sure, and the TARDIS dematerialized before she could think anything of it.

Shaun was waiting patiently for her, sitting with his ankles crossed and his hands folded in his lap when she came in.

Donna did not have to hide what was about to happen. One look at his face as he stood to meet her and Donna knew he was already prepared.

After they talked and she gave him back his ring, he took both of her hands in his and raised them lovingly, carefully brushing her knuckles with his lips, the last physical gesture of love he would be able to give. Again, Donna thought she should cry, because she did love Shaun, just not the way he needed her to. It was terribly hard to leave him. But the tears wouldn't come. 

He wanted to leave her the apartment and stay with his brother, but Donna insisted he stay.

"I need to be with my Mother," Donna explained. "Right now we need to be together."

"Right, of course," Shaun said, looking down. He looked up one last time. "I'll miss you, Donna. I hope...I hope we can be friends one day. But I need a chance to...well..."

"I understand," Donna said, smiling at him. "Don't worry about the flat, I'll send someone for my things in good time." Donna turned back towards the door. She hadn't even taken off her coat. Before she opened it she looked back one last time. Shaun smiled at her.

"Goodbye, Shaun," Donna said, "Thank you for taking care of me."

"Goodbye, Donna," he answered. And then she was gone.

Donna drove back to her mother's house in her blue compact car, wondering why she couldn't cry even though her heart was so broken. First she had to leave the Doctor, who loved her after all, then she learned she would never see her beloved grandfather again, and she had to leave a wonderful man like Shaun Temple behind because she realized she'd never fall in love with him like she fell in love with her best friend.

When she walked into her mother's house, Sylvia had been dozing unfitfully on the living room couch, two cups of cold tea on the table in front of her. She startled awake at the sound of a key in the lock, and stumbled to her feet by the time Donna was inside.

Donna looked at her mother's red eyes and puffy face and finally felt herself start to crumble.

"Mum," she said brokenly, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Sylvia pulled her into a hug as Donna started to sob. They curled together on the couch and Donna clung to her mother and cried like she did when she was a child. She cried for her grandfather, the dearest man in the universe. She cried for reaching the penacle of her life only to lose it all to the insecure frustrated woman she used to be. She cried for Shaun and the like they might have had. 

And she cried for the Doctor, who broke her heart, and she hoped he would forgive her for leaving him when he so obviously needed her. But she needed time.

Donna tried returning to work after Wilf's funeral but she found it impossible. She felt large and small at the same time, surrounded by ringing phones and constant memos. Instead, she used the small amount of money Wilf left her to travel around the world. Her mother actually enjoyed running the family news stand in Wilf's place, giving her a way to gossip with the neighbors on a regular basis, freeing Donna to do anything she wanted. Donna felt it was what Wilf would have wanted, to see her traveling again, and sometimes saving people, saving the world.

Which is how she found herself across the pond, watching the sunset, seven months, three weeks, three days and fifteen hours later. Waiting.

Donna didn't have to wait long. In the distance, coming through the vortex, she could hear the time rotor whirring, becoming louder and louder until she turned at grinned into the sudden wind blowing through the canyon.

* * *

Sometimes a message would come easily, sometimes it came like a slap to the face. This time the Doctor felt the psychic tug so abruptly and keenly that he missed his footing and fell face flat against the TARDIS corridor he was walking down.

He had been wearing his glasses so they pushed painfully into the bridge of his nose as he fell.

"Blimey," he said to the floor. He rolled over to his back. "That's going to leave a mark," he said to the ceiling.

The TARDIS continued to hum like nothing was amiss. Though if she could, she'd tell him not to read and walk at the same time.

The Doctor adjusted his glasses back on his nose, frowning as he felt the ridge where his specs were jammed. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his psychic paper.

_"We need to talk. Donna._

The Doctor sprang to his feet and read the rest of the message, which consisted of when and where Donna was at, as he made his way to the council room. Reading and walking again like that didn't just end with him and his conk on the floor. Well, reading and walking very fast. Running in fact. He entered the coordinates quickly, using both hands and one foot to steer her across space and time. He couldn't help smiling.

The Doctor grabbed his coat, tucked his glasses into his jacket pocket, and adjusted the knot of his tie. He ran a hand through his hair, hoping the part looked okay...then he realized he was primping and stopped himself. He wouldn't be able to impress Donna Noble that way, and knowing her she'd be able to tell he was trying.

He didn't know how long he had been away, but he sensed that it had been longer for her than it had been for him. She needed her space. He needed her presence back in his life, grounding him.

With one deep breath to prepare himself, he opened the door and leaned out, looking around. There she was, standing at the edge of a cliff and grinning at him. She was wearing loose, comfortable clothing, a dark green shirt and lightweight capri pants with her hiking boots. The sun was setting and the red and gold tones were glinting off her skin and hair. Nothing could have prepared him for how beautiful she looked, he thought and he grinned back at her.

They both moved and soon he had his arms around her and was lifting her off the ground, laughing. "I missed you!" she said, laughing into his ear and he squeezed her tighter.

He put her down and she grabbed his hand, still smiling at him. They turned back and walked towards the edge of the cliff where he first saw her. Donna Noble was here next to him standing in the sunset. The Doctor glanced at her hand in his and felt, for the first time in a long, long while, a sense of contentment.

"How long has it been for you?" Donna asked.

"About two weeks," the Doctor lied.

She gave him a wry look. "You didn't wait long then, did you?"

The Doctor felt the strings of time pass by since he last saw her. It was late summer now, he realized. It had taken her longer than he thought to come around.

"Doing some exploring?" the Doctor asked her, looking out at the scenery.

"Yeah," Donna answered. "There are a lot of places I wanted to see and get the dead Earth out of my head. And I've always wanted to go to Bryce Canyon. I think the structures look like castles-"

"It's technically not a canyon. Canyons are formed by erosion from a central stream, like a river, but this landscape was formed by _headward erosion,_ or the enlargement of a body of water's drainage basin, forming these natural amphitheaters from pinnacles called hoodoos. They have other charming names, like tent rocks, fairy chimneys, earth pyramids-" He stopped when he looked over at Donna. Pursed lips and wide sparkling eyes like she was laughing at him. "They also look like the spires and towers of a majestic castle," he concluded.

"Don't they though?" Donna said in a teasing, breathy tone that was so familiar.

He smiled down at her as she turned to point out different castles she could see in the landscape. _I adore you,_ he wanted to say. He was sure it was written all over his face and all she had to do was glance back at him to see it.

"I-I didn't see you at Gramp's funeral," Donna said.

"You didn't?" The idea alarmed him but it wasn't a surprise. He didn't like funerals.

"Well, not _you_ you. There was a man there that I thought _might_ be you. Another skinny streak of nothing in a tweed jacket like Gramps used to wear. Said Wilf was 'cool' and that they were 'old friends' when he came 'round to give his condolences. He wouldn't meet my eyes though. When I suspected it was you he was already gone..." Donna gazed wistfully out at the canyon for a moment. "I suppose that's the past now," she said, squeezing his hand.

"Or the future," the Doctor said.

"That's another thing," Donna said. "What do you want for the future, Doctor?"

"Oh, Donna!" the Doctor said, turning so they were facing each other. "I want you to come home. To the TARDIS. There are so many other places I want to take you, remember? But I know what traveling is like, and I understand if you don't...if you don't want to risk it again-"

"Of course I want to go traveling, Time Boy," Donna said. She released his hand to give him a friendly pat on his shoulder. But she gripped the lapel of his brown coat and bit her lip and the Doctor waited while she thought out what she wanted to say next, studying every gesture and motion she made like it would give him a clue to what she wanted.

"But that's not exactly what I meant. Yes, I want to go traveling. I haven't ever really stopped. But...but what did you want for the future...between us?"

 _Everything,_ the Doctor wanted to say. But he knew he didn't deserve Donna's love after everything they've been through. "Whatever you're comfortable with, Donna. We can carry on like we used to, best mates and partners traveling the stars." Donna's face fell a small fraction and the Doctor was afraid that he was asking too much. "I understand...I understood what you were trying to say last time we talked, but-" Well, that was only partially true. He thought he understood what she was trying to say. That she didn't feel the same way she did before. But it had been over seven months since he left Donna on Earth and he couldn't help but notice she wasn't wearing her engagement ring anymore.

Which didn't mean she wanted him, but a man could hope.

"You're my best friend," he said, "And I want to travel with you again. I'd love it. Before we decide," the Doctor said, changing tone and wrapping his hand around the one on his coat. He turned to pull Donna along to the TARDIS. "Let's take a trip. I want to show you someplace special, somewhere I've always wanted to share with you."

He stopped to let her swing her pack over one shoulder. "Where's that then?"

He grinned at her. "It's a surprise."

* * *

Donna stepped out of the TARDIS first as it whirled to a stop. They were in a small crater that looked like a large space quarry. It reminded her of the time they went to see the courtship of the Zyglots. It was night and the sky was filled with several celestial bodies and a colorful space-time rift that was all too familiar.

"The Medusa Cascade," Donna said, surprised and little wary. She studied the colorful phenomenon as the Doctor exited the TARDIS behind her, shutting the door. She noticed he took off his coat. "Why did you bring us here?"

"I know the last time we were here wasn't under the best circumstances," the Doctor said, "But this little moon is important to me. It was one of the first places I traveled to."

"Would it happen to be the fifteenth moon?" Donna asked him.

She loved how pleased he looked. "You remembered!" he exclaimed happily.

"Of course I did, you were trying to seduce me with the universe at the time," Donna said. "Going on and on like I could understand what all of that meant."

"You understood that I wanted you to stay," the Doctor said. He grabbed her hand and Donna looked up at his manic grin and wild eyes. "Now let me show you what's special about this moon!"

He started running towards the horizon with Donna in tow. Donna laughed as she was tugged behind him. It was exhilarating, being there again, running with her barmy Doctor. She felt a sweet feeling swelling in her chest. The feeling of light, innocent adventure that was so rare for them, reminiscent of the times when they were living in the happiness of the moment.

She wanted to know if he meant it when he said he wanted to go back to being partners traveling across the universe. In a way, it was what Donna wanted more than anything. But to go back the way they were...well, in a lot of ways it felt like a step backwards. And Donna was tired of moving backwards in her life.

"Almost there!" he called.

The stopped abruptly at the precipice of a huge rock face. Donna gasped at the sight. They were standing on the edge of one half of the moon, the other half across from them like the canyon on Earth they had been standing on moments before. It was a wide chasm, and Donna could see nothing but the vastness of the Medusa Cascade between the two halves of the moon, green and yellow and red nebula clouds, and hundreds and thousands of stars.

"Two halves of one moon! Broken by a unique gravitational disturbance in the rift and orbiting around each other like two magnets-" the Doctor explained, throwing his arms wide, face and body fully animated as he went into what Donna thought of as his trademark know-it-all mode.

"It's like the cliffs of Moher on crack!" Donna exclaimed. "Extreme cliffs! It's probably not safe for us to mill about the edge, is it?" she asked, leaning over to see how far the bottomless cliff went.

"Are you ready?" The Doctor had leaned in close to ask the question right into her ear. He had grabbed her hand again, and he pulled up against his right heart.

She looked up and smiled at the manic glint in his huge brown eyes. "Ready for what?" she asked.

"We're going to jump," he said, casually, like he was saying they were going to have a picnic.

"What?! No, no bloody way-" Donna said, raising her voice and trying to pull away.

He held her hand fast. "There's a gravitational anomaly between the two halves of the moon. The orbit is delicate and unique, causing a magnetic push and pull that is weightless when you're right in the middle. And miraculously the atmosphere is still breathable," he said. "Come on, Donna. There's nothing in the universe like it," he continued when Donna looked wary, "Don't you trust me?"

If Donna didn't know him as well as she did, she might have missed the gruff, vulnerable edge his voice took. It was the right question, Donna realized, looking at him as he moved to pull her back to the edge, looking so hopeful.

Donna smiled at the Doctor, and moved to start running towards the cliff. His grin could light up the night as he moved to run beside her.

Together they jumped.

Donna couldn't help a small cry as they fell, and she lost hold of the Doctor's hand. There was a moment of terribly fast free fall and then, in an instant, they were floating down between the two halves of the moon, rainbow colors of the nebula clouds surrounding them. Donna could feel the funny weightless tug in her abdomen, the sort she had only gotten on roller coasters or scuba diving.

It was the most magical moment she ever had.

Donna laughed out loud and tried to do a summersault, her fiery hair whipping about her face. Directly above her she could hear the Doctor laughing too, and she moved to float on her back so she could see him. He turned and comically did a backstroke as he moved passed her.

The played like that for a long time. Donna couldn't tell if they were floating down or floating up between the two halves of the moon. She tried spinning like a dancer, tried tucking her knees to her chest so she'd fall faster, tried flapping her arms and gliding like a bird. Meanwhile, she could see the Doctor laughing, smiling, and spinning in the air next to her. The pushed at each other's arms and ankles, trying to get the other to spin. At one point he did an impressive triple pirouette and Donna threw her head back and laughed as he spun into her.

The motion didn't feel like a lot, but it was enough to send them hurtling for a half second. It was enough that Donna cried out and clung fiercely to the Doctor. He chuckled and pulled her in close, holding her as they floated. Donna felt that giddy feeling leech into her heart and soul and thought she had never been so happy. She told him so.

"I've never felt so alive," she said. And it was wonderful, after months of never quite feeling alive, to feel so complete.

Donna pulled away slightly so she could look at his face, wanting to connect, and share the joyful experience. But behind the twinkling expression on his face was a seriousness that stopped her from saying anything else. She turned away, pressed her cheek to his chest to listen to his hearts rather than look into those eyes. His heartsbeat was so fast, like a hummingbird's wings. She had only processed it before she felt the gentle pressure of his fingers on her chin, lifting her face back up.

He looked into her eyes and then used both of his hands to bring the palm of her hand reverently to his lips, closing his eyes just as he made contact. It was a distinctly romantic gesture and Donna's heartbeat increased watching him. Perhaps it was the extra adrenaline pumping through them that made him a bit braver, driving him to do something he normally wouldn't.

"Spaceman," she whispered. And he opened his eyes, dropping her hand slightly so he could smile unsurely at her. He was so close she could smell that strange, alien scent that was unique only to him.

Donna gently removed her hand from his and ran a hand along his fringe and the side of his face, looking into his eyes and wishing there was a way to reassure him. She felt a strange tug in her mind as her fingers brushed his temple and Donna knew what she should do.

Carefully she moved her hands to either side of his face. Instinctively he held her more tightly at the waist as she brushed his temples with her fingers and gently followed the tug on her mind into his.

The colors in the nebula clouds had nothing against the burst of color and feeling inside the Doctor's mind as he opened up countless pathways before her and his thoughts danced across her own neurons like friendly fireflies.

His love for her was so integral to his thoughts. It was attached to every trivial moment on the surface and every deep, stout thought and feeling in the center of his mind. He opened to her, awed, reverent, and eager, like he wanted to show her who he was, like it was another adventure. His mind was vast, ageless, filled with brilliant starlight, but with dark, heavy spaces scattered around inside.

Donna unfolded her mind before him, like a blooming flower. She let her love for him shine into his mind like a lighthouse, pulling him away from those dark spaces, from the endless sadness and loneliness he was drowning in.

He gasped, and pulled out of her mind. Donna opened her eyes to look at him. His eyes were hooded and his mouth was open. He looked at her in shock. She smiled at him softy. "This is the moment," she said, "This is the moment where you know. Not something you took, not something that was said. You know now. You know that I love you. And I always will."

Wonder and happiness blossomed over his face and Donna couldn't help but smile. He gathered her into his arms holding her tighter, his hands moving up her sides to cup her face, and back down again. He looked so beautiful, she thought, as they floated there. And he did, his body, mind and soul so weightless, so free. They floated finally to the other side of the moon, the horizon coming into sight. He leaned into her, forehead and noses touching, as the stars unfolded before them.

"You love me," he breathed, moving to cup her face again. 

"Yes," she whispered back, moving her hands to hold his close to her cheeks. She closed her eyes.

"I love you too," he said.

And then he turned his head, leaning forward, too slowly. Impatient, eager and smiling, Donna leaned in the rest of the way. Her lips met his and he pulled back slightly, surprised, but he smiled into the kiss when he felt Donna smiling too. He tasted like spices and starlight. Donna's hands slipped from his and wrapped around his neck, while his drifted to wrap around her shoulders and waist, pulling her as close as she could be.

It was a kiss of promises and possible forevers. And they carried on that way, floating in the universe in each other's arms, as they would carry on together for a very long time.

* * *

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, that's the show. But seriously, I want to thank every single one of my readers for your love, support, and friendship through this story. I wrote it because I needed a Donna catharsis, but what was even more healing for me was meeting the rest of the fans. I love you so much, thank you for reading. ♥♥♥


End file.
